Burn These Feelings
by Wandergirl108
Summary: It is said that broken souls fix each other, yet sometimes broken souls have no wish to be fixed. After many centuries wandering the world in pursuit of strength, Rokurou becomes obsessed with freeing Velvet from Innominat's grasp…but even if he succeeds, the consequences may be more dire than he can handle. Post-Zestiria, RokuVel w/a bit of NikoVel, ground rules above 1st chap.
1. Something is Missing

***READ THIS* Some ground rules:**

**1) Only what's found within the games Tales of Berseria and Tales of Zestiria are acknowledged as canon. Also, if I didn't manage to find something, I can't take it into account, obviously; I thought I was pretty thorough with Berseria, but Zestiria was a slog, and I probably missed a lot…the point is, if I contradict something that is in the games, it's because I don't know about it. Besides that, though, even if it's the Word of God, it doesn't count if it wasn't in the games. Obviously. That's the only way Rokurou is still around post-Zestiria.**

**2) Alisha's Story is NOT canon. I have not played it, I cannot play it, and from what I've read about it online, it is terrible, so I do not want to play it. Lunarre died when Rose stabbed him, Symmone is off doing Symmone things, and though Alisha does join Rose in the quest to purify the land so Sorey and Maotelus can return, no events of any unfortunate nature occurred during that time, besides what's in this chapter. Also not canon is the Anime, which I also have not seen.**

**3****) My Berseria-only ficlet "A Wandering Heart" is a prequel-ish setup thing to this fic; everything in that fic, and especially everything said in the footnote of that fic, applies to this story as well.**

**4)**** I know there's some contention in the fanbase regarding Velvet's sexuality, so let me explain my take on the matter. First of all, there is no romantic subplot for ANY of Berseria's characters, at any point, so that argument isn't really valid; to claim that one of the protagonists' lack of interest in the opposite sex means they're gay is to claim that they're ALL gay, except maybe Rokurou because he asked Phi about going into the bath with Velvet that one time. The only real indication we get as to any of the characters' sexual orientation comes from the post-postgame-dungeon bath scene, and my interpretations are as follows: Rokurou is definitely into women, Eleanor is not into men, and Velvet's smirk when she tells Phi that she didn't have her eyes closed during the event indicates that she finds at least some appeal in the male figure. ****She does also have thoughts of one day becoming a mother during the intro, which, considering that it's unlikely sperm donors are a thing in the world of Berseria, isn't a particularly gay thought, though of course that doesn't necessarily prove anything.**** HOWEVER, it is a fact that the only person outside her family that she ever seems to have a deep connection with throughout the game is her childhood friend Niko, to the point where she was going to teach Niko a family recipe, which kind of seems like a more-than-friends thing to do. In any case, the only thing that seems entirely certain is that, at any given point throughout the game, Velvet has things that matter to her a lot more than finding a partner: taking care of her sickly brother before the Advent, and avenging her sickly brother after the Advent.  
*TL;DR: Velvet is bi, but romance is never anywhere near the top of her list of priorities.**

**5) ****When certain parts of this story feel contrived - and they will - all I can say to justify it is, something something Maotelus's blessing something something. The point of this story was to give Rokurou and Velvet better, more satisfying endings than they got, to actually finish off their character arcs and have them find what they didn't even know they were looking for. I actually conceived most of this story before I even got my hands on a copy of Zestiria; having played through Zestiria so I could write this with some amount of accuracy, I now want to give closure to some Zestiria characters too, so there will be a sequel. My point is, characters in this universe rarely get closure or finished character arcs, and that's what I'm setting out to fix as a fanfiction author. To that end, some things will be imperfect (especially in this chapter), and for that I apologize.**

* * *

It had been centuries since Rokurou had traveled with companions, so many that he had long since lost count. Always, he pursued strength, mastery as a swordsman, and always, something was lacking. Forever alone with his thoughts, when he wasn't mediating or focusing on his training, he thought of his old comrades, Velvet most of all. The faces of the others faded with time, yet Velvet's blazing golden eyes were still crystal-clear in his memory. Even though he couldn't exactly miss her, not as a mostly-emotionless daemon, her absence was one he felt whenever he was at rest. No matter what he did, or where he went, something was always missing…and eventually, he started thinking that that something was her, and her alone.

But she was far out of his reach. In order to bring her back to the world, he would have to find Maotelus, and who knew what the Dragon of Light was doing, or where he might be? So Rokurou wandered, fighting whomever he could, desperate for fulfillment and never finding it.

The world changed, of course; the times, the people, the land. Every now and then, while staying at inns, he would hear talk of the modern times, of the Shepherd and all that that meant. They called his kind 'hellions' now, and malakhim were called 'seraphim', though not everyone even believed those existed. Politics happened, and soon the continent was divided in two, the Kingdom of Hyland and the Rolance Empire. Rokurou didn't care for the most part, but when war broke out between the two nations, as a yaksha, he couldn't help lingering on the outskirts of the battlefield, picking fights with any humans-turned-daemon who stumbled off it in a confused rage. None of them put up any kind of fight, though, as so few things did by then; it was so disappointing, it took two whole days of meditation after a dragon broke up the battle for Rokurou to maintain his sanity and not be completely consumed by the malevolence he lived with.

Still, he lived, maintaining his identity and being through sheer self-discipline and mental fortitude. His body didn't age for some reason, and so, as long as he spread out his incursions into society enough that people wouldn't recognize that fact, he could still occasionally even enjoy a meal and a bed. This only ever meant thoughts of Velvet, of what he was lacking, but the booze was almost nice enough to be worth it.

Then, on one trip into some town, he caught sight of someone familiar. The familiarity alone caught him off-guard, as nothing he knew still lived. But there it was: a man in a long black coat, blond hair that faded to orange at the tips, and eyes as blue as the sea. He was just standing there, not doing anything, but their eyes met, as if Eizen had been waiting for him.

"Eizen!" Rokurou exclaimed, approaching his old friend.

The old malak didn't flinch.

"Hey, how are you?" Rokurou asked him. "You remember me, don't you? Rokurou?"

"Rokurou," Eizen repeated, his eyes turning away. "Yeah, I remember…It's been a long time. I didn't think you were still around."

"Yeah, don't remind me," Rokurou chuckled, feeling lighter than he had in so very long. "Hey, care to grab a drink with me?"

"Not a good idea," Eizen replied. "Humans can't see seraphim. It would raise too many questions."

"Oh, right."

An awkward silence hung between them. Something felt off, but Rokurou tried to shake the sensation; just being able to talk with someone who knew him was a gift that he would have to be a fool to question.

"Um…is the Van Eltia still sailing?" Rokurou asked.

"No, not for a long time," Eizen replied. "I still find a way, though. What about you?"

"I'm still working hard to be the best swordsman I can be," Rokurou replied readily. He frowned, then added, "Though it's not really working out like I thought it would."

"Oh?"

"I don't know how to explain it," Rokurou confessed. "Something's just…missing. I can't quite put my finger on it. Though I do miss you and everyone else…especially Velvet."

"Velvet," Eizen repeated. "Haven't heard that name in a long time…"

"Do you think she's still in the earthpulse?" Rokurou asked abruptly. "You know, with Innominat?"

"Most likely," Eizen replied.

"Because I've been thinking," Rokurou carried on, "if we could just get in there, maybe we could pull her and Innominat apart somehow. Then Laphicet - er, Maotelus - could consume what's left of Innominat, just like he wanted to do to him, and then Velvet could-"

"Do you have any idea what you're asking?" Eizen demanded gruffly, sounding more like himself than he had the entire conversation. "To go within the earthpulse is no simple matter, and I'm sure if there was a way to pull them apart, Maotelus would have done it a long time ago. Even then, the risk of releasing Innominat is too great. You should just let this idea go."

"Hey, are you all right?" Rokurou asked. "It's not like you to tell people to give up on what they want to do…"

"All I'm saying is that it's a bad idea," Eizen stated. "Innominat is dangerous, and it's only because of Velvet that the world is safe from him. There's no guarantee Maotelus could get rid of him."

"I'd still like to try, though," Rokurou mused. "I don't suppose you know anyone who could help me?"

"Maybe I do," Eizen said cryptically, "but I won't tell you who. Seriously, find something else to give your life meaning, or give up."

And with no further explanation, Eizen walked away. Rokurou was stunned for a minute, and by the time he managed to pursue his old friend around a corner, Eizen was nowhere to be seen.

_Was that really Eizen?_ he thought. _It's been a long time, but I don't remember him being like that…_ He shook his head. _No. No, it was him. I guess time changes everyone, even malakhim._ Shrugging this off, he instead refocused on what Eizen had said. _Someone he knows could help me find Velvet. That's a lead. How many people could possibly know the Reaper?_

The thought burrowed its way deep into Rokurou's mind, yet another idea that simply would not let him rest.

~o~

_Someone knew Eizen._ As long as Rokurou knew this, he couldn't stop wondering who could possibly know Eizen that might be able to help him. With no better ideas, and all the time in the world, he started asking around.

At first, it was just innkeepers, shopkeepers, anyone he had to talk to anyway: "Do you know Eizen?" Then he started stopping people on the streets or roads every now and then and asking them. Within a year, he found himself lingering in towns and villages, asking around before setting out on his next bout of training.

It was all for naught. No one he asked had any idea what he was talking about. Still, the possibility haunted him. He wasn't even sure why he was so obsessed with Velvet. Maybe it was his old debt, or maybe it was the fact that she would be a damn fine opponent in battle and might at last give him what he sought as a swordsman…or maybe it was something else, something he couldn't articulate or feel, only sense on an instinctual level…

Then, one day, as he was spending some time in a town built in the middle of a huge lake, he passed a group of people and heard one of them gasp. Some words were exchanged, words he couldn't quite make out, and their steps stopped. Staying mindful of them, Rokurou kept walking…and sure enough, they started following him.

Instinct took over, and he abruptly turned down a side street. Whoever they were, they followed, and he took them on a winding path through the city before reaching a distant, quiet alley with a dead end. Ducking around a corner, he drew his swords, then leapt out when they got close.

"Why are you following me?" he asked.

To his surprise, his pursuers were four women, two of whom, Rokurou realized with a start, were malakhim - one, a woman with long hair that faded to pink and a frilly red dress, the other, what looked like a child wearing a cute little white dress and carrying an umbrella. The girl looked familiar, but he couldn't place her. The human at the front was a redheaded girl with blue eyes and a catlike smile, and the other appeared to be a female knight with blond hair that looked like it was quite a chore to keep in its weird shapes.

Though they flinched at his sudden appearance, they all looked at him with hard eyes, as though searching for something.

"He looks…like Lady Maltran did," the girl knight noted, not ansewring Rokurou's question. "I can't see any marks of a hellion on him, but…"

"He's definitely malevolent," said the woman malak.

Rokurou blinked, then smirked. "Was it that obvious?" he asked, and brushed aside the hair he used to cover his daemon mark to humor them. "No one's ever noticed before."

All four women gasped, clearly able to see his corrupted eye, and then the redhead drew two shortswords from behind her back, while the knight brandished her spear.

"A fight?" Rokurou asked, surprised but delighted, brandishing his swords again. "You're on! Don't go easy on me!"

"Why didn't we get Zaveid and Uno?" the knight asked worriedly.

"No time, and it doesn't matter, we can take this guy," the redhead declared.

As they spoke, the two humans charged at him, while the malakhim stayed back and began charging malak artes. Barely had a few blows been exchanged, though, before Rokurou noticed something with a jolt of total shock.

"Whoa, time out!" he shouted. "Time out, time out!"

More out of surprise than a willingness to obey, everyone froze.

He turned a hard stare on the redhead. "Where did you learn that technique?" he demanded, sheathing his swords.

"My…technique?" the redhead repeated, confused.

"Your fighting style," Rokurou pressed. "Where did you learn it?"

"Uh…" She glanced at her comrades, who were clearly even more at a loss than she was. "I…I was raised by the Windriders. This is just the fighting style we use."

"The Windriders?" Rokurou asked. "Who are they?"

"The finest, most feared mercenary guild on the continent," the redhead answered with a smirk.

"Mercenaries…?"

"Sure, we had to break up after an incident, but we formed the Scattered Bones assassins' guild. You've heard of us, haven't you?"

"Assassins…?" Rokurou felt his breath coming hard, as something began to rise in his chest.

"What's the big deal with my fighting style, anyway?" the girl asked.

"Mercenaries," Rokurou repeated under his breath. "Hired blades. Thugs. Bandits. Scum!" For the first time in many centuries, Rokurou felt something, truly felt it, with all his being: sheer, unbridled _rage_. "Assassins! Murderers! Backstabbers! _This_ is the legacy of my ancestors?!"

"Huh?!" the offender took a step back.

Fury exploded through Rokurou's entire body, and he roared at the intensity of the emotion, roared like a wild animal, like the daemon he was. He felt it expand beyond him, fill the air and the ground.

"Rose!" shouted the malak woman, reaching a hand out to the redheaded girl, and then she and the girl malak were gone. The remaining two humans cried out in fear and stumbled away from his outburst.

"_How dare you_?!" Rokurou shouted at the redhead. "How _dare_ you defile my family's name?! The Rangetsu style is meant for those who fight with honor, with discipline, with respect! When I passed it on to others, I taught them better than to use it for profit, for underhanded killing and renown! You have no right to fight like one of my clan! _No right_!"

"I don't know what your deal is," snarled his foe, "but a hellion has no right to talk about honor!"

With far more force than needed, Rokurou grabbed Stormhowl in both hands and drew it, aiming it at her. "Fight me!" he shouted. "One on one, greatsword against short swords, no allies, no malakhim! Prove to me that you have the right to wield the techniques of my ancestors! Fight me now, unless you don't have the honor to fight an opponent head-on!"

"Rose," the knight said to her companion, "don't listen-"

But the girl apparently called Rose held a hand out to the knight, her blazing eyes locked on Rokurou. "Do not question my honor, hellion," she spat. "Alisha, stay out of this. If he wants to fight one on one…" She twirled her daggers and took a defensive stance that was signature of the Rangetsu style. "…then that's what he's gonna get!"

With a roar, Rokurou charged at her. He expected her to block, but instead, she neatly dodged him, so deftly that he didn't actually see her move, and flowed seamlessly into a blow aimed at his side. Only centuries of practice prevented him from getting caught off-guard, and he just managed to deflect her attack. As soon as her knife glanced off his blade, she aimed a blow towards his head with her other dagger. He ducked, and she changed direction, following his movement.

She was _good_.

Rokurou managed to fend her off, only for the next attack to come. It quickly became apparent that Rose was the finest opponent he'd faced since Shigure; she didn't just use the Rangetsu style, she was a _master_ of it, each of her movements flowing seamlessly into the next with no apparent effort or hesitation. His did likewise, and their battle turned into a dance, a glorious display of perfect blocks and dodges, leaps and rolls and swinging blades. Slowly, the cold intensity of battle, the natural state of the yaksha, washed over Rokurou, and where once his rage had made his movements overpowered and clumsy, leaving him barely able to defend himself, he regained his control and started being able to fight back.

For each attack by the one, the other would have a perfect dodge or block and counterattack, and their mastery was about equal. A few thoughts flitted through Rokurou's mind, never quite distracting him, just insights into the fight: Rose was a master of techniques he'd trained at for many years before becoming a daemon, even some he had still been struggling with when he'd decided he wanted to take down Shigure - only one who had truly been raised to use this fighting style could fight like this. She almost reminded him of him, putting his all into besting his Stormhowl-wielding brother and not quite being able to succeed.

As the battle went on, it became clear that the deciding factor in this fight would be stamina, and stamina alone, and Rose apparently realized this a few moments after Rokurou did. Suddenly, she was the one getting sloppy, taking foolish risks in an attempt to get the upper hand, but the sudden change in tactics was just jarring enough that Rokurou wasn't quite able to take advantage at first. When he realized what she was doing, he redoubled his offense, forcing her to defend and leaving her little room to maneuver.

In what was clearly a last, desperate bid to overpower him, Rose caught Stormhowl between her daggers and tried to use them to wrench his sword out of his hands with all her strength. Rather than resist, he relinquished his grip readily, throwing her off balance and causing her to lose her grip on her own weapons as well. As the three blades flew into the air, Rokurou reached over his shoulder for Stormquell, drew it, and swung, stopping just a hair's breadth from the side of Rose's throat; why he stayed his hand wasn't something he was consciously certain of.

Three swords clattered to the ground, and then, save for the heaving chests and the rasping of breath, all was still.

They held the position. Rokurou waited, blood roaring in his ears and deafening him to the cry of distress from Rose's comrade, for the assassin to show him her own dirty trick.

It didn't come. Instead, after a minute, Rose lifted her chin.

"Well, hellion?" she challenged. "You've bested me. Are you going to kill me or not?"

"You accept defeat?" Rokurou growled. "No underhanded techniques to overpower a foe who's better than you? I thought you were an assassin!"

"Just because it's my business to kill doesn't mean I don't have honor," Rose told him. "This is the way of the Windriders…of my family. If we're bested in a fair fight, we accept the loss with grace. Although…" Her lips twisted into a sly smile. "No one has ever succeeded at beating us one-on-one that I know of. Well, Sorey did, but of course he had the seraphim helping him."

"And what happens if the one you're charged to kill manages to beat you?" Rokurou demanded. "What then? How do you make your blood money?"

"We don't make a living off assassin contracts," Rose replied. "Most of our earnings come from honest trade as a merchant guild. And it's not like we kill for fun. If we're asked to take someone out, we look into them first, find out what kind of person they are, whether or not they really did whatever they're accused of doing that caused someone to want them dead; and if they don't deserve to die, we turn down the contract."

Rokurou processed this. Something about Rose's eyes told him that she wasn't the type to make up stories to save her own skin, and she _had_ fought like a Rangetsu, meaning she at least had the discipline needed for it. That made her, in a way, a younger generation of his family…and that, he realized, was why he hadn't killed her: though young Rangetsu men and women were encouraged to kill their elders in battle if they managed to achieve victory, elders never killed members of the younger generations.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and wrestled his anger back down. He half-expected a blade in his chest, having taken his eyes off his opponent, but still, it didn't come. At last, he opened his eyes, smiled, and withdrew his sword, sheathing it. "I'm sorry," he said. "It seems I misjudged you. You're a worthy user of the Rangetsu style."

"Uh…"

Turning his back, Rokurou walked over to where Stormhowl and her daggers had fallen to the floor and picked them up. He sheathed his own blade, then brought the daggers to her and held them out, hilt-first. "I'm not sorry we fought, though," he told her, grinning. "That was the best battle I've had in hundreds of years!"

"Hundreds of years?" she gasped, taking her weapons and sheathing them. "How old are you?"

"Eh, I lost track of the centuries a few centuries ago," he said dismissively.

"Rose!"

Rokurou turned, and saw that the two malakhim were back.

"Rose, are you okay?" asked the older woman, rushing over to the heiress of the Rangetsu legacy.

"I'm fine, Lailah," Rose assured her.

The malak nodded, then turned to Rokurou and raised a piece of paper - paper, Rokurou noticed, much like what Laphicet used to use. Before he could react, white fire erupted from the malak's hands and cascaded over him.

It was an odd sensation, one he'd felt once before. This was the Silver Flame, Laphicet's gift to the world as an Empyrian. And just like all those centuries before, though Rokurou felt its burning touch, it didn't penetrate his skin.

Rose and the malak gasped. "He wasn't purified?" Rose exclaimed.

"Yeah, that trick doesn't work on me," he told them. "Maotelus himself tried it once. I guess I'm just too malevolent."

"Maotelus?" Rose exclaimed. "You know Maotelus?"

"Hmm?" the malak asked, though her eyes were on the sky for some reason. "That's a big cloud…"

"Oh yeah, he was an old friend of mine," Rokurou said brightly, ignoring this odd tangent. "We went on a big journey together a long time ago, before he became the new Empyrian."

"Empyrian…?" asked the other human.

"Empyrian is what the Great Lords used to be called," said the girl malak in an oddly toneless voice. "It's been a long time since anyone called them that, though. This guy really is old."

"Lailah," Rose said, turning to the one who had tried to purify Rokurou, "tell me something. His domain was strong enough to render you powerless, right? How did you break through?"

"We didn't," answered the malak who seemed to be named Lailah, her voice gentle and somehow heavy with the wisdom of ages gone by, and she approached Rokurou with a small frown on her face. "He…he withdrew it of his own accord." She raised a hand, and as Rokurou stood frozen in shock, she touched the hair covering the right half of his face, before exclaiming and withdrawing her touch as though she'd been stung. "Such malevolence," she gasped. "I haven't felt malevolence like this since the Lord of Calamity. And yet…" She cast a piercing gaze over him, as though looking for something. "And yet somehow, he's keeping it entirely contained within his being."

"So…is he the Lord of Calamity or not?" Rose asked, rolling her eyes.

"I don't think so," Lailah said slowly. "In fact, he's not exuding any malevolence at all, not even into the earth."

"Unless you make him angry, apparently," the other malak commented, her voice flat.

"Meaning killing him won't help Sorey and Maotelus," Rose grumbled. With a heavy sigh, she folded her arms. "Fine. Let's let him walk away."

Everyone gasped. "Rose, he's still a hellion!" exclaimed the knight. "We can't just-"

"He beat me, fair and square," Rose said, though she refused to look at any of her companions. "It's our way: if we're beaten, we accept the loss with grace, and if our conqueror spares our life, we owe them a debt. Always pay what you owe…and I owe it to him to judge him fairly. I don't think he deserves to die."

"Rose," Lailah said, her gentle face confused, "you've never hesitated to kill a hellion who couldn't be purified before."

"You actually told Sorey that he was holding us back whenever he hesitated to kill one himself," added the malak with the umbrella.

"Yeah," Rose said slowly, "but I've also killed humans who didn't generate any malevolence at all, because they were still bad people. Not everyone who deserves death is malevolent, so…maybe not everyone who's malevolent deserves death."

"And what makes you think this one isn't just as bad as every other hellion we've seen?" the young malak questioned, her voice still oddly toneless.

"He could have killed me," Rose replied. "He chose not to. Even though he's a hellion, he has a weird sense of honor. If he'd spare my life, I don't think he'd go around murdering anyone else. So, if we killed him, what would that say about us?"

Her companions stared at her.

"Think of it this way," she said eventually: "I kill people based on who they are, not what they are. I've judged humans who had no malevolence at all; if I killed a hellion who isn't really doing any harm, then that's…that's holding a double standard. It's not really fair, is it?"

"He's still a hellion," Edna pointed out.

"I know, but…" Rose fiddled absently with a lock of her hair. "I don't know…for some reason, killing him just…doesn't feel right. I can't explain it any better than that."

"Rose," Lailah sighed, "you are the prime Squire now, the honorary Shepherd. You're in charge. If you're sure we should let this hellion live, we'll do as you say. But are you really sure?"

There was only a moment of hesitation before Rose nodded. "I'm sure," she said. "I owe him for sparing my life, so I'm judging him for who he is, not what he is, and based on that judgment, he doesn't deserve to die."

"Very well," Lailah conceded, nodding.

"You owe me a debt, huh?" Rokurou asked. "And you're willing to accept that even though I'm a daemon? Heh, you really are worthy of the techniques of my ancestors."

"You keep saying that," Rose remarked; "what does it mean?"

"Just that you fight using the battle style of my clan," Rokurou replied, shrugging. "Nothing more than that, really. I taught it to some people after the rest of my family was wiped out so our ways wouldn't be forgotten. I have to say, I'm really glad it was worth the effort, that our legacy was preserved along with our techniques."

"Whatever," Rose muttered.

"And hey, if you owe me a debt, maybe you can answer a question I have," Rokurou went on, suddenly remembering. "You wouldn't happen to know Eizen, would you?"

He wasn't really expecting an affirmative response, but Rose and the two malakhim gasped, and Rose and Lailah turned to the malak girl with the umbrella. Rokurou followed their gaze, and found cold blue eyes glaring at him.

She brandished her umbrella like a sword and demanded in a low voice, "What do you want with my brother?"

* * *

**Before anyone asks, yes, Eizen is dead at this point in time. Don't worry, I didn't magic him back to life, this isn't THAT kind of fixit fanfic.**


	2. Those Who Stand Still

"Brother?" Rokurou asked, blinking. He thought for a moment, and then lit up as he remembered. "Oh, hey, are you his little sister, the one he kept going on about?"

She blinked and took a step back.

"It was…" Rokurou racked his brains. "What was the name…Eina, or something, right? I remember it started with the same letter as his name…"

"Edna," the knight exclaimed, "you know this hellion?"

"_Edna_, that was it!" Rokurou punctuated, and he grinned at her, not really noticing the shock and pain on Edna's face. "It's good to finally meet you! I'm Rokurou, Rokurou Rangetsu. Your brother told you about me in a letter once, remember? Actually, I don't know if he called any of us by name when he wrote to you…" He frowned.

"Rokurou," she repeated in a very small voice. "I…I remember that name, but…" She shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut against some sort of trauma. "But that was over a thousand years ago!" she cried.

"A thousand years?" the knight gasped.

"It's been that long, huh?" Rokurou asked thoughtfully. "Good to know, I guess."

"What do you want with Edna's brother?" Rose demanded.

"Oh, it's not that I'm looking for _him_," Rokurou explained. "I'm just looking for someone who _knows_ him. He said he knew someone who could help me, and I figured, how many people could know the Reaper?"

"Whoa whoa whoa, slow down! He _told_ you? When was this?" Rose asked.

"Uh…I'm not sure," Rokurou admitted. "A…a year or two, maybe-"

"You're lying," Edna said flatly. "My brother has been dead for years now."

"Dead?!" Rokurou exclaimed. "What happened?!"

Edna turned her back, her umbrella covering her entire upper half.

"Eizen turned into a dragon a long time ago, hundreds of years in fact," Lailah said sadly. "We finally put him to rest just recently."

"Hundreds of years? No," Rokurou said. "No, I…I know it hasn't been that long since I saw him. Maybe a couple of years…or possibly decades, I don't know…but…it hasn't been _that_ long…"

"So you're lying," Edna stated.

"No, I saw him, I know I did," Rokurou insisted, deciding not to acknowledge the fact that something had seemed off about the earth malak. "He said he knew someone who could help me. Hey, maybe he meant you! I can't imagine anyone else knows him-"

"Stop talking about him like he's still here!" Edna shouted, her back still turned.

"Look, I don't know what to tell you about whether he's alive or dead or whatever," Rokurou said; "all I know is, he said he knew someone who could help me, and I've been looking for that person ever since."

"Did he tell you _who_ he knew that could help you?" Rose asked cynically.

"Well, no," Rokurou admitted, "but he doesn't think it's a good idea. I don't care if it's not a good idea, though, I want to try…"

"Why should we help you?" Edna asked, still with her umbrella shielding most of her figure, though her voice was steady once more and, again, oddly emotionless. "What reason could we possibly have to help a hellion?"

"It's not like I want to hurt anyone," Rokurou said. "Kind of the opposite, actually. A friend of mine is sealed away, and I can't get her out without help. Specifically, I need to find Maotelus. I don't suppose you know where I could find him?"

"Oh dear, it really does look like it's going to rain," Lailah said sadly, her gaze fixed on the sky once more.

"Uh…" Rokurou blinked, and turned his attention to Rose. "What's her problem?"

"She has some oath that lets her wield the flames of purification but means she's not allowed to talk about Maotelus or something," Rose answered resignedly. "This is I guess her way of being careful not to break it. Just ignore her."

"Huh," Rokurou mused. "Well, anyway, do you know how I can get in touch with Maotelus? He didn't leave me a forwarding address."

"I hope that bird doesn't get rained on."

Rose sighed. "Should we tell him, Lailah?"

"You might as well," she answered sadly, this apparently not infringing on her supposed oath.

Another sigh. "Maotelus is…indisposed, at the moment," Rose informed Rokurou. "He got corrupted by malevolence a couple decades ago, and Shepherd Sorey became his vessel to try and purify him while we eliminate as much malevolence as we can, so the earth can go back to being a pure vessel for him and he can go back to granting everything his blessing. That's why we came after you when you passed by; Lailah said you had malevolence. But if your malevolence isn't leaking into the ground, well, it doesn't really matter what we do with you."

This was a lot to process. While Rokurou was still digesting the finer points of this revelation, and thoroughly ignoring the random tangent Lailah was taking in the background, he asked, "Are you saying…I'll never be able to ask for Maotelus's help?"

"I'm not saying that, exactly," Rose explained. "Like I said, we're working hard to pave the way so he can come back once he's been purified. But it'll take a while."

"How long?"

"No one knows," Rose answered with a shrug. "It could take centuries. We're working hard on our end, but Sorey has to purify him, too. There's no telling when it might be done."

"Centuries…" Rokurou repeated softly. He closed his eyes and thought, focusing all his mental energy on the problem. "I…I can wait centuries," he concluded at last. "She can, too, I hope. I mean, if she's lasted this long, then…"

"She?" Lailah asked.

"Yeah, the friend I mentioned, who's sealed in the earthpulse," Rokurou replied, seeing no reason not to tell them everything given that they were apparently going to be working together in some way. "Her name's Velvet."

"I didn't know hellions had girlfriends," Edna commented, her back no longer turned, her voice still entirely flat.

"Oh, she's not my girlfriend," Rokurou dismissed. "We're just…comrades, you know? She was part of our little group, along with Eizen and Maotelus, and a couple other people. And I want to get her out."

"How did a human end up sealed away in an earthpulse?" Rose wondered aloud. "I didn't even know it was possible to go into them…Heck, I didn't even know earthpulses were a _place_."

"Well, Velvet's not exactly human," Rokurou said. "She sealed Innominat away, by trapping him in a loop of eating her and being eaten right back. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but they can't be too hard to pull apart."

"She's _eating_ Innominat?" Lailah gasped. "How is that possible?"

"That's what she does," Rokurou shrugged. "She can consume her enemies through her left hand."

"Sounds like a hellion to me," Rose grumbled.

"Oh, yeah, she's a daemon - er, hellion," Rokurou said quickly. "But she's not evil or anything. She just does what she has to, same as anyone else."

"Great," Edna said dully. "So the idea is for us to help a hellion rescue another hellion who's sealed away with the Great Lord of Suppression who will probably cause the collapse of all of mankind. Sounds like a brilliant plan."

"Well, Maotelus is the fifth Empyrian now, right?" Rokurou reasoned. "He can probably just absorb Innominat, and that'll be that, the world will be safe from Innominat's Suppression, Velvet will get to live her life, I'll have repaid my debt, and everything will be fine!"

"Somehow, I doubt it'll work out like that, and I don't even understand half of what you're saying," Rose commented. "In any case, it doesn't matter right now, Maotelus can't do anything. Although…I'm not sure why you need him in the first place…"

"Well, like you said, the earth is his vessel," Rokurou explained. "The earthpulse is basically an extension of the bodies of the Empyrians. It'll take an Empyrian to get in there, if not Maotelus himself."

"Edna, I don't suppose you'll let me borrow your umbrella when the rain starts?" Lailah asked Edna.

"It's not going to rain," Edna stated. "Even if it did, this is my umbrella. Get your own."

Rokurou couldn't help but chuckle at this. "Gotta say, you're not what I expected Eizen's little sister to be like," he commented.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, still in a flat tone.

"Eizen was always a serious guy, but you take it to a really weird extreme," Rokurou answered. "He always made you sound like this sweet, delicate little flower."

"And I'm _not_ a sweet, delicate little flower?" Edna asked, taking a menacing step forward, her lack of emotion somehow scarier than blatant anger would have been.

"Well, I mean, you're just…uh…" Even Rokurou knew danger when he saw it. "Not the kind I always imagined," he finished lamely.

Edna glared at him, but didn't attack, and he counted himself lucky for that.

"So…what now?" asked the other human, the only one of this group whose name Rokurou still didn't know. "If we let you go, are you going to go and…and hurt people?"

"Nah," Rokurou told her. "Like Rose here, I don't hurt people for the fun of it. I only fight opponents who can fight back, otherwise I won't learn anything from it."

"Tell me, hellion," Lailah said in an oddly gentle voice, "what is it that keeps you going in this world? Your body hasn't aged or decayed even though you've been around for so long, which tells me that you've embraced your malevolence completely, yet you still seem to have your wits about you. What is it you seek?"

"My goal is to be the greatest swordsman the world has ever seen," Rokurou told her. "You can't achieve that with mindless violence. It takes control, practice, training, discipline. I'll admit, my daemon side has almost overwhelmed me a few times, but it's nothing I can't control with meditation. If I surrendered my identity to malevolence, I wouldn't be a swordsman anymore, and I'd never achieve my dream."

"That's…surprisingly admirable," Lailah said, though her eyes were sad. "But if you've been seeking that goal for a thousand years, surely you've accomplished it by now?"

"No," Rokurou grumbled, crossing his arms. "I know I'm still not strong enough. If I faced my ultimate rival, my older brother, greatsword-to-greatsword, right now, he would still beat me. Whatever it is that he had, I'm still missing it."

"Maybe you'd find it if you let yourself be purified?" she suggested.

Rokurou shook his head. "No," he repeated. "Being a daemon keeps me motivated. The lack of most emotions that comes with being a yaksha helps me keep a clear head in battle. Like Maotelus said, it's part of who I am."

"Oh dear, it's getting late," Lailah commented, her gaze on the sky once more.

"_Maotelus_ said being a hellion is part of who you are?" Rose asked, clearly not believing him.

"I wonder what we should have for dinner…?"

"Yeah," Rokurou replied to Rose, ignoring Lailah. "Like I said, we were friends back in the day, and I didn't meet him until after I became a daemon. He wasn't an Empyrian when we traveled together, but he became one when our journey ended. I guess, even though I'm a daemon, I have the gods' blessing, in a way." He grinned. "He'd probably be really mad if he found out you'd killed me!"

"Rappig stew, or tofu…?"

"Well, I'm glad I didn't, then," Rose said, though he wasn't sure if she was serious.

"So, uh, whenever he comes back…" Rokurou began.

"I'm sure you can ask Lailah or Edna and they'll tell you," Rose said. "It probably won't be in my lifetime, though."

"Why are we agreeing to help a hellion?" Edna asked. "Two hellions? When did we decide we were doing that?"

"In the meantime, if you ever want to spar again, I'd love a rematch," Rokurou told her, ignoring Edna now too.

"If you just want to practice, I'm not too bad with a spear," offered the other human. "Maybe I could do what she couldn't."

"Yeah, no offense, but you probably wouldn't stand a chance against me," Rokurou told her. "Rose is a master of the Rangetsu style, and even she barely managed to hold her own."

"I'd say I did a lot better than 'barely manage'," Rose grumbled.

"Say, what's your name, anyway?" Rokurou asked the knight. "If we're going to run into each other again, I'd like to know."

"My name is Alisha," answered the knight, her chin held high.

"Alisha, huh?" Rokurou said thoughtfully. "Nice to meet you. Sorry this is all so confusing."

"Hey, why don't you apologize to _me_?" Rose exclaimed.

"We should go," Edna said tonelessly. "We've wasted at least an hour on this nonsense, and we have a job to do."

"Edna's right," Alisha agreed, and she gave Rokurou a slight bow. "It was nice to meet you…I think. Thank you for not killing Rose."

"Don't mention it," Rokurou told her, waving a hand. "It'd be a shame to see a master of the Rangetsu style like her die over a misunderstanding."

Lailah giggled. "You really are a strange one, aren't you?"

"Heh…Velvet said the same thing once," he reminisced. "Anyway, it was nice to meet you all. I'll be sure to stop by every now and then and visit."

"We'll keep an eye out," Rose told him. Then her expression hardened, and she added, "Listen, just because we're letting you go now doesn't mean it's okay for you to go out there and cause trouble. If you start attacking innocent people, we'll stop you."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Rokurou assured her. "Innocent people can't put up a fight, there's no point in attacking them."

The four shared uneasy glances, but Rokurou didn't mind; he was what he was, though he knew the fact that they were willing to let him go at all when they had some sort of ties to the Shepherd was something to be grateful for.

"Well…goodbye then," Lailah finally said awkwardly, and they walked away.

"Can't believe we're just letting a hellion go," Edna muttered as she joined her friends. "When did we all become idiots?"

Rokurou watched them go; his lifeline, the key to some amount of peace. All he had to do was wait, and stay in touch with those two malakhim, and eventually, he'd get a chance to release Velvet. Maybe then he'd find what he was missing.

~o~

Time passed, as it always did. Knowing he had only to wait, Rokurou was more at peace than he had been, and still set out on endless journeys seeking strength.

It didn't come.

Whenever he passed by Ladylake, he would drop in and catch up with the people who had his answer, though this basically amounted to him finding them, catching their attention, them shaking their heads at him, and him walking away. It didn't bother him, but he got the sense that he wasn't welcome, and so he didn't intrude more than he had to.

After what felt like a blink of an eye, Rose and Alisha weren't around anymore, both dead of old age. Still, Lailah and Edna humored Rokurou with a dismissal every time he tracked them down. Without Rose and her sense of honor to keep him safe, Rokurou was especially careful to keep his distance.

Time had lost all meaning long before a day came when Rokurou was hunting down Lailah and Edna yet again, and had barely set foot in Ladylake before a malak arte shot into the air from somewhere in the heart of the city, invisible to most. Curious, Rokurou went running, and found, to his surprise, Lailah and Edna, as well as a malak with long white-and-blue hair and blue clothes.

"How have you been, Meebo?" Edna was asking the blue malak. "Find anything interesting?"

"Plenty," he replied. "In fact, during my latest expedition, I found something really special that I thought you guys should see."

Though Rokurou couldn't see his face, he could hear the smile in the malak's voice. As he considered this, wondering when he might have a chance to interrupt, a boy in a feathered cloak ran past him at full speed, skidding to a halt in front of the malakhim and doubling over to gasp for air. Edna and Lailah stared at him as he straightened up.

"Hey guys," he said.

"Sorey!" Lailah exclaimed at the top of her lungs, lunging forward and embracing the kid. "I can't believe it's you!"

Even Edna, whom Rokurou could only ever recall seeing with a blank expression, smiled slightly. Rokurou was stunned; this kid was Sorey, the Shepherd who had bound himself to Maotelus? But that meant…

"So it's done, then?" Edna asked tonelessly. "Maotelus is all pure again?"

"Yeah," Sorey answered, returning Lailah's embrace. "The earth is pure enough, Maotelus is back to his old self, everything's fine. The world can enjoy natural purification again."

"That's wonderful news!" Lailah chirped, clasping her hands in delight as she released him. "Oh, Sorey, we missed you so much! I can't believe your work is finally done!"

"Yeah, me either," Sorey admitted. "Although, it doesn't really feel like I've been gone for that long."

"It's been about five hundred years," Edna informed him.

"Five hundred?" Sorey repeated with surprise. "No way…"

"I'm just surprised he's still alive," the blue-haired malak commented. "If anything, I thought he would come back as a seraph…"

"Yeah, I guess being with Maotelus made me immortal or something," Sorey mused. "Either that, or we were on another plane of existence of some sort…"

"So, basically the same thing," Edna commented.

"I'm so happy we can all have this reunion!" Lailah said brightly. "It's a shame Zaveid isn't here to join us, but I'm sure he'll be happy too, the next time he visits."

"Where is Zaveid?" Sorey asked. "I thought he'd be with you."

"Oh, he wandered off after Rose retired," Lailah answered. "Said he had to find his own way and such. You can't really expect a wind seraph to stay tied down for too long. Still, he comes to see us every now and then."

"Way too often," Edna added.

Sorey laughed. "Man, I missed you guys," he said fondly, and Rokurou recognized the signs of a group that had fought through a lot of hard battles together. Just like him…except his group would never reunite.

There was only Velvet.

Deciding he'd given the friends enough time to catch up, Rokurou emerged from his hiding spot around a corner and approached. Edna was the first to notice him.

"Oh great," she muttered. "Here comes the killjoy."

"Huh?" Sorey and the blue-clothed malak turned around, and Rokurou nodded at them.

"Who are you?" asked the malak.

"Name's Rokurou," Rokurou answered, and for good measure, he brushed the hair away from the side of his face. "I've been waiting a long time to meet you, Shepherd."

"A hellion!" Sorey exclaimed, as he and the malak took defensive stances. "Lailah, Edna, be careful!"

"You don't have to worry about this one," Lailah told him. "He's been around for a while now."

"Around…?" Sorey turned to look at the malak woman over his shoulder. "Lailah…you haven't purified him?"

"We tried," she said sadly. "His malevolence runs too deep for my power to cleanse. But he keeps it all contained in his being, it's not doing any harm, and…well, it's a long story."

"He's been waiting for you to be done with Maotelus so he could ask the Great Lord for a favor with something," Edna told Sorey. "For some reason, we decided we were going to help him do that. I hope you have more sense than Rose and Alisha did."

"Rose…" Sorey repeated softly. "Alisha…they're both dead, huh?"

"Long ago," Mikleo confirmed.

Sorey hung his head, and Rokurou crossed his arms, willing to give him a few moments at least.

"Rose was an admirable prime Squire her whole life," Lailah told Sorey, "purifying more hellions than almost any Shepherd in history. Alisha worked hard too, when she could get away from her political duties…in fact, in a way, her primary focus was just as important - she worked hard as a peacekeeper between politicians, so that tense situations wouldn't generate more malevolence in the first place."

"They gathered a lot of other people with resonance together to help purify the world for you, just like you wanted," Edna added, still in a monotone that Rokurou was starting to think was just the way she talked. "No one was as gifted as Rose was, though, so once she was gone it was a lot harder. I'm surprised we ever got to a point where Maotelus could return."

"Not surprising," Rokurou piped up, and everyone turned to glare at him. "Rose was a fine warrior," he plowed on; "only my centuries of training gave me an upper hand against her in battle. I'm sorry she's gone. She was a truly worthy opponent."

"You fought Rose?" Sorey asked.

"Centuries of practice?" the blue malak questioned at the same time.

"Wait…did _you_ kill her?" Sorey demanded with a snarl before Rokurou could answer either question.

"Nah," Rokurou assured him with a grin, "I couldn't cut down someone like her, not when she was a true master of my family's techniques and could pass on that mastery to future generations. I was just satisfied to beat her. Besides, she fought with honor. I had to respect that."

"Your family's techniques…?"

"Long story short, this hellion's been wandering around for over fifteen hundred years trying to become a great swordsman," Edna informed Sorey, "but he can't for some reason, even though he meditates to keep from going crazy. Apparently, back in his time, he was part of some clan that used a special fighting style, and somehow that technique got passed down to Rose. He wants Maotelus's help to free an old friend from the earthpulse, who's been down there for as long as he's been up here."

"You make it sound so simple," the blue malak commented.

"We never asked about the details," Lailah admitted. "He always runs off whenever we tell him you're still not back."

"I ran off because I figured I wasn't welcome," Rokurou grumbled.

"And you figured right," Edna stated.

"Still, it's remarkable that he's still himself after all this time," Lailah went on. "There's something…worth respecting, about him. Rose herself insisted we not kill him, that it wouldn't be right somehow. I'm sure we can convince him to open himself to the flames of purification if we help his friend."

"Yeah, don't get your hopes up," Rokurou smirked.

"An old friend," the blue malak repeated thoughtfully, eyeing the daemon swordsman with pale purple eyes. "You say your friend is trapped in the earthpulse?"

"I mean…" Rokurou hesitated, realizing that he didn't actually know that for a fact. "I _assume_ that's where she is. She sealed Innominat away, so…"

"Innominat?" the blue malak gasped. "You know Innominat?"

"Fought him," Rokurou grinned. "He was trying to suppress all human emotion and make mankind destroy itself. We couldn't let that happen. Well, Velvet was more interested in getting revenge on the guy who sacrificed her brother to awaken Innominat than anything, but I'm sure that was a factor, too, at least for some of us."

"Velvet?"

"_Us_?"

"It's not important," Edna stated. "Sorey, are you going to take him to Maotelus or not? If not, then let's just kill him and move on."

"Uh…W-Well…" Sorey stammered, looking between his friends uncertainly.

"Not you too," Edna grumbled.

"I say we should help," Lailah said readily.

"I vote no," Edna said.

Sorey looked between the two of them, while Rokurou shifted his stance, ready to draw his blades in case things didn't go his way. The fact alone that Maotelus wasn't 'indisposed' anymore meant he could probably figure the rest out by himself if he had to.

"…Mikleo?" Sorey eventually asked the blue-haired malak. "What do you think?"

The malak was clearly deep in thought. "I…" He took a breath, then lifted his head. "You were sealed away for a long time, too, Sorey. I waited for you. This guy has been waiting a lot longer than I did for his own friend, so…I say we help."

Edna grumbled, but Sorey nodded. "Right," he said, turning back to Rokurou. "Come with us. We'll take you to Maotelus."

"To Camlann, then?" asked the blue-haired malak.

Sorey nodded again.

"You'll have to go through Elysia to take him there," Edna pointed out.

"Only the outskirts," the malak reasoned. "With the four of us there to keep him in check, he shouldn't be able to do anything."

Rokurou sighed, then clasped a hand over his heart. "I swear by my swords, I will not harm you or anyone else, if you take me to Maotelus," he pledged.

"By your swords, huh?" Edna asked dully. "Nothing better to swear by?"

"My swords are my life," Rokurou told them firmly, "and my honor is my creed. Without both, I would be nothing. You can trust me."

They stared at him, clearly calculating and not entirely believing. He didn't speak; there was nothing more to say.

"…Alrighty then," Sorey managed at last, and he started walking. "Follow me."


	3. Just Believe Your Way

"So, what's your name?" Rokurou asked the blue-haired malak as they left Ladylake. "Not sure I caught it."

"My name's Mikleo," he replied.

"Huh. Could have sworn I heard Edna call you something else," Rokurou commented.

Mikleo's only response to this was a frustrated sigh.

No one seemed open for conversation as they made their way through the hills, but Rokurou didn't mind the tension that stretched between the Shepherd and his malakhim; he only felt a faint thrill that at last, he was going to get a chance to bring Velvet back. Up they went, to a forest that Rokurou had never actually gone in before, and he commented as much as they made their way under the trees.

"Elysia is the home of the seraphim," Mikleo told him, "and we generate a powerful domain to keep intruders out. Aroundight forest is our border."

"So, someone's still maintaining the domain?" Sorey asked. "Even after…?"

"Everyone left is working to keep it up," Mikleo told the Shepherd. "It's not the same as…as what Gramps managed, but it does the job well enough."

The two of them seemed saddened by this, deeply so. A passing thought wondering at it flitted through Rokurou's mind, but he brushed it off; it wasn't his concern. The exchange did explain the odd sense of heaviness the forest had that made it almost more difficult to move around in - if malakhim were working to keep out intruders, a daemon would be high on their priority list. But he pushed on.

Things weren't exactly more pleasant once they were through the forest and up on the mountainside, despite the warm sun and the clean air. Sorey, though, stopped and took a deep breath.

"It's good to be home," he sighed contentedly.

"Haven't you been here since you got out?" Mikleo asked him.

Sorey shook his head. "The first thing I remember is seeing you fall down a hole. I think I asked Maotelus to put me wherever you were."

"Well, it's a good thing you did," Mikleo commented, and they smiled at each other in that way only brothers-in-arms do.*

"I'm surprised it all pretty much looks the same," Sorey went on after a moment, surveying the landscape. "You said it's been five hundred years, right?"

"Normally it takes a lot longer for landscapes to change considerably," Mikleo pointed out. "There was that one catastrophe during the Era of Disaster that caused the land to be thrown into upheaval, but nothing like that has happened since you left."

They were, of course, talking about what Velvet had done in waking the Empyrians, Rokurou knew. It crossed his mind to add that he'd been there when it happened, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out was, "So where's this Camlann?"

"Oh, right," Sorey said quickly, glancing at him, and he turned to the right. "This way."

"Do we even know Maotelus is there?" Edna asked.

"Well, no," Sorey admitted, "but it's probably the best place to look."

"So we don't know if Maotelus is in Camlann, and we don't know if Velvet is in the earthpulse, but we're going to Camlann to find Maotelus so he can let a hellion into the earthpulse," Edna muttered. "Why do I still travel with you idiots?"

"Are you all right, Edna?" Mikleo asked. "You sound bitter, even for you."

"I'm not sure why we're all going so far out of our way to help a hellion!" Edna snapped, her normally-emotionless voice developing a note of anger. "He hasn't really even done anything to convince you to help him!" Composing herself, Edna opened her umbrella and began twirling it over her shoulder. "Hellions don't have friends, or any consideration for anyone but themselves," she went on. "This one has admitted that all he cares about is getting stronger. Yet none of you has even asked him why he wants to free this Velvet person so badly in the first place."

"When you put it that way, I admit it is a bit odd," Mikleo conceded.

"Well?" Sorey asked Rokurou. "Why _do_ you want to free your friend?"

Maybe it was the number of eyes on him, maybe it was something about Sorey's innocent demeanor, maybe it was the malak artes that hung in the air, but Rokurou felt compelled to give a completely honest answer. "I don't really know," he confessed. "Ever since she sealed Innominat away, I've scoured the land in search of something that will make me stronger, but…no matter where I go, or what I do, something is always missing. At night, when I close my eyes, I still see her; when I eat, all I can think about is how much the food pales in comparison to her cooking. Maybe she's what's missing, maybe not, but…all I know is that I can't rest, and I can't stop thinking about her. I don't miss her, exactly," he added; "I lost most of my human emotions when I became a daemon. It's just an odd sense of…lacking. That's all I can say."

Silence hung between the five of them for a minute. Eventually, Edna turned to Sorey and asked, "Do you believe him?"

Sorey's emerald eyes were deep and distant, much too old for someone who looked so young. "I do," he answered with a sharp nod. "And when I became the Shepherd, I swore to help everyone, even hellions; I may not be the Shepherd anymore, but my will is still the same. If this friend of his is the key to whatever keeps him malevolent, then it's part of my duty to help free her."

Though Edna still grumbled, there was no further debate on the matter, and Sorey turned away from the mountaintop and headed into another forest. Rokurou followed, and they soon came upon a door that led into what felt like some ancient ruins.

No one spoke as they descended staircases, down, down, all the way back down the mountain as far as Rokurou could tell. When eventually they reached another door, Mikleo stepped forward and cast some sort of arte. Before Rokurou could ask, something shattered, and he understood; this door had been sealed.

On the other side, they were outdoors again, perhaps on the mountain's other side. Old ruins of what looked to be houses littered the enclosed landscape, and there was an odd sparsity of plants.

"Oh!" Lailah exclaimed, kneeling down. "Look! the grass is starting to grow again!"

"It definitely looks a lot better than the last time we were here," Mikleo commented.

"Yeah," Sorey agreed softly.

"Looks pretty desolate to me," Rokurou shrugged.

"You weren't here five hundred years ago," Mikleo pointed out.

"True."

"Let's just get this over with," Edna said, and she started walking. The others made sounds of agreement, Lailah stood, and they proceeded.

Beyond the ruins of what seemed to be an ancient village, they came to a massive stone staircase, and Rokurou stopped short.

"I know this place!" he exclaimed.

Everyone turned to him in surprise.

He grinned. "This is The Empyrian's Throne. Artorius had it built as a shrine to Innominat. It's where we came to face him for the last time…" His smile faded. "It's…the last bit of solid ground Velvet ever stood on."

There was silence for a moment.

"Well, then it's…probably the best place to start looking for her," Sorey offered at last.

"Yeah." A knot in Rokurou's gut that he hadn't noticed loosened. It wasn't the sensation of hope, but all the same, he had a sense that he really was on the right path, that this would take him to Velvet and, if he was lucky, whatever it was he lacked.

"You should probably stay down here, Lailah," Mikleo said after another moment.

"Huh?"

"Your oath," Edna said dully. "We don't need you going off on random tangents the whole time we're trying to talk to Maotelus."

"Oh my, even the bugs are returning!" Lailah exclaimed, getting down on her knees again. "Look at those tiny ants! Move the earth, little ones, you can do it!"

As Lailah continued encouraging the insects she saw on the ground, Sorey and the malakhim exchanged resigned glances, then began climbing the staircase. With a new spring in his step, Rokurou followed them.

At the top, there was a short courtyard…the same one from which Velvet and her crew had ascended to battle Innominat. Immediately after that, though, the building suddenly cut away, a sheer cliff leading down into a crater.

"Well, we're here," Sorey said.

"Damn, this brings back memories," Rokurou sighed. "I can't believe this is all still here."

"I don't see Maotelus," Mikleo noted.

"Great," Edna muttered.

"Hey, Maotelus!" Sorey shouted, cupping his gloved hands around his mouth. "Maotelus, are you here? We need to talk to you!"

"Oh, quit it," Edna said. "You think a Great Lord is going to listen to a human shouting for him in the last place he'd want to remember being?"

"Maotelus!" Rokurou shouted, joining the Shepherd's call. "Come on out, Phi! It's me, Rokurou!"

"Phi?" Mikleo asked.

Rokurou ignored the question, and Sorey ignored all three of them, both continuing to call out for the Empyrian. The daemon swordsman didn't question the likelihood that it would work, he just acted. Still, it was slightly surprising when the stone underfoot began to shake.

"_I am here_."

All at once, Rokurou and Sorey shut up, as the earth below the ruined monument began to glow, and a white light rose up from within, eventually taking the form of a massive white dragon. The Dragon of Light glided down onto the floor that remained, hulking and huge before the human, daemon, and malakhim. Edna and Mikleo stepped back, Sorey smiled, and Rokurou strode forward immediately, almost woozy from the lightness in his chest at the familiar sight.

"Maotelus," he greeted the divine beast. "It's good to see you again."

Maotelus lowered his head to stare Rokurou directly in the face; though it was hard to tell, there didn't seem to be any recognition in the slits of blinding white light that constituted his eyes.

"Come on, don't tell me you don't recognize me," Rokurou chided, pushing aside the hair that covered his daemon mark. "I know it's been a while, but you wouldn't forget your old pal Rokurou, would you?"

For a long minute, the Empyrian still didn't speak, didn't move. Just stared.

Then…

"…Rokurou?"

"Yep!" Rokurou grinned. "The one and only."

"Rokurou…" Maotelus reared back and seemed to stumble.

"What's going on?" Mikleo asked.

"Rokurou." The enormous glowing head thrashed, and then the dragon went still, orbs of light rising from its surface as the scales went dark.

"What's happening?!" Sorey exclaimed. "Maotelus!"

Slowly, the orbs gathered together into one light, which descended to rest in front of Rokurou at waist height. Then, it shifted, and a new form quickly materialized: that of a small child, with one lock of hair that curled up and around his head like a halo.

The boy opened his green eyes, and immediately his gaze locked onto Rokurou. "Rokurou!" he exclaimed, and his face lit up with delight. "It's really you!"

"Hey, there's the Phi I remember," Rokurou said fondly, stepping forward. "How have you been?"

"I'm okay," Maotelus told him. His smile faded, and he added, "Well, things got kind of bad for a while there, but I'm much better." Just like that, his smile returned. "How about you? I didn't think you were still around!"

"Yeah, I guess malevolence plus a lot of meditation makes a guy immortal," Rokurou said.

Sorey stepped forward, staring at the small malak. "Are you…Maotelus?" he asked.

Maotelus tore his attention away from Rokurou and gave Sorey a smile of his own. "Yup!" he answered. "This was the form I took before I became the new Great Lord. I…I'd almost forgotten it." His smile faltered, and he glanced at Rokurou before returning his full attention to Sorey. "I never got to thank you, for what you did for me," he said. "You went so far out of your way to save me, and the whole world. Thank you, Sorey."

"Uh…it was nothing," Sorey stammered, rubbing the back of his head. "I couldn't just leave the whole world to fall apart."

"You went far above and beyond the normal duty of the Shepherd," Maotelus told him. "All of life is grateful for the sacrifice you were willing to make." His eyes wandered, and he spotted Mikleo and Edna cowering on the edge of the old monument. Pensively, he tilted his head. "I know you two," he said. "I felt you. You were there, with me, before Sorey became my vessel. I don't know what part you played in it all, but…thank you, too."

"O-Of course," Mikleo managed. "You're welcome."

"Thanks for not killing us," Edna added dully.

"Huh?" Maotelus blinked in confusion, but when Edna didn't explain, he just shook his head and turned back to Rokurou. "I'm so happy to see you," he told the daemon swordsman. "It's been so long, and so much has happened…I was starting to forget myself. Seeing you again has reminded me. Thank you."

"Oh. Uh, yeah, don't mention it," Rokurou responded awkwardly. "I, uh…I'm sorry I haven't come to visit more often…"

"It's okay," Maotelus assured him, still with that childlike innocence that hadn't changed in over fifteen hundred years. "I'm just glad you're here now."

"So you really are friends," Sorey mused.

"Of course!" Maotelus exclaimed, grinning. "Rokurou and I went on a whole long journey together; he helped make me who I am!"

"Hey, uh, speaking of which," Rokurou inserted.

Maotelus turned to him with bright eyes.

Rokurou took a breath. "It's good to see you again, Phi, but-"

"My name is Maotelus now," Maotelus grumbled. "Please stop calling me that."

"Oh." Rokurou blinked. "I…didn't realize you didn't like that name."

The tiny Empyrian sighed. "It's okay," he told Rokurou.

"Anyway…it is good to see you again, don't get me wrong," Rokurou tried again. "But I, uh…I came here hoping to ask a favor."

"What do you need?" Maotelus asked.

"It's…about Velvet," Rokurou began.

Immediately, all the mirth was wiped from Maotelus's little face. "Rokurou…"

"I've been thinking," Rokurou plowed on, the words spilling out all at once. "Now that you're the fifth Empyrian, if we broke Innominat and Velvet apart, you could consume Innominat, just like he wanted to do to you, right? Then Velvet could be free, and you could use the Silver Flame on her, and-"

"Rokurou, I tried."

This brought Rokurou up short. "…W…What?" he managed.

"I already tried to free her," Maotelus told him sadly. "Once I got used to my powers as Great Lord, I tried to reach into the earthpulse and pull them apart so she could have her life back. I wanted that more than anything. But…I couldn't."

"Why not?" Rokurou asked.

"I'm not sure," Maotelus replied. "I don't know if it was something she did intentionally, or if it has something to do with Innominat's power, but…the two of them are bound together by a tremendous amount of mana. Even my powers can't disrupt the bonds. I did try, Rokurou, I really did!" Tears came to his jade eyes. "I swear I tried! I…I couldn't do it!"

"Well…" Rokurou faltered. He _needed_ to free Velvet, he'd waited so long and come so far that the idea of giving up just didn't exist. "Um…Why don't you let me try? Take me to her."

"Rokurou…"

"I mean, I have yet to find something my swords can't cut," Rokurou added, forcing a smile.

"You can't cut mana with a sword, Rokurou," Maotelus sighed.

"Why not let us all have a look?"

Everyone turned, surprised by Mikleo's voice.

"I would like to see this binding spell for myself," he said. "It sounds like it could be a Mana Wheel."

"A what?" Sorey asked.

Judging from the look on Edna's face, she hadn't heard of it either; Rokurou certainly hadn't.

"It's just a possibility," Mikleo said, "but during my travels, I once read about a hypothetical arte that could only be cast by making forces that were both complimentary and contradictory merge together. In theory, it would generate a power far greater than the sum of its parts, even one that could surpass that of the Great Lords, though no cases of such a thing have actually been documented."

"A Mana Wheel…" Sorey mused.

"Forces that are both complimentary and contradictory?" Edna asked. "What does that mean?"

"Well, like the four elements," Mikleo explained, "earth, water, wind, and fire. Since they have a cyclical relationship, if all four could be forcibly concentrated together in one spot, even more than four seraphim sharing a human vessel, they would form a loop that would churn out tremendous amounts of mana. Think of it like a water wheel," he added in response to the blank looks he was getting; "it turns, and the turning of the wheel generates power used to perform tasks normally beyond the means of any of its parts. But, instead of the external force of water causing the wheel to turn, the wheel turns itself, because the different pieces that form it chase each other around the axis, so there's no limit to how much power it could generate."

"I…_think_ I get it…" Sorey said.

"I'm just sorry I asked," Edna stated.

"It would make sense," Rokurou mused, and it was his turn to receive shocked looks from everyone else present. "Velvet was a therion, one of the Seven Mouths of Innominat, and she locked Innominat's main body into a cycle of eating and being eaten by her, a part of himself."

"That…_could_ result in a Mana Wheel, in theory," Mikleo concluded, "especially considering we're dealing with a Great Lord."

"Well, I'm lost," Edna sighed, and she started idly twirling her umbrella. "Sorey, let's go, we did what we came here to do. Meebo can stay and be part of this if he wants."

"Hang on, Edna, now I'm curious too," Sorey said. "If we have a chance to actually see something that's only been theorized about, I'd like to go along."

"Of course you would," she grumbled. "Fine, I'll go too. You'd get so distracted without me there that you'd never back come out."

"But…but Sorey, there's no point," Maotelus insisted. "There's no way to get Velvet out of there, and even if we did-"

"Then you could just devour Innominat," Rokurou inserted. Maotelus turned to look up at him, and he smiled. "Come on, kid, I believe in you."

"Just take us to see for ourselves," Mikleo said. "If nothing else, it would be a study worth witnessing."

"But…" Maotelus trailed off, glancing between Rokurou, Mikleo, and Sorey, all of whom were looking at the divine malak expectantly, though Edna wasn't looking at any of them, instead glaring at the floor. Slowly, the boy caved, eventually nodding.

"Okay," he told them.

Turning back into light, he rose up, then sank back into the dull form of the dragon he had been, which quickly regained its luminescence and stood. The Dragon of Light roared, and a rift opened in the air in front of them.

Sorey gasped. "Is this…?"

"It's an earthpulse rift," Rokurou told them, stepping forward. "Come on, let's go find your Mana Wheel." _And Velvet._

Not waiting for anyone, Rokurou entered the earthpulse, and could only hope the others followed.

* * *

***Yes, I know Sorey and Mikleo are canonically a couple; keep in mind that this is from Rokurou's perspective, brothers-in-arms would probably be considered much closer than brothers or even lovers in his eyes.**


	4. This Tied-Up Justice

Familiarity was not something Rokurou experienced much anymore, not with the land reshaped and everyone he once knew gone. Inside the earthpulse, though, was as familiar as things got for someone who'd lived as long as him, and the sensation was soothing enough for him to just stop a moment and take it in as the others came through the rift behind him, including Maotelus in his Empyrian form.

Sorey and Mikleo gasped at the sight, and Rokurou could hardly blame them; the blue not-stone floating high above the ground in long ramps and paths, the odd tinge to the surroundings that made it clear that the earth they saw far below was not something they could reach just by jumping off the edge, the air thick with mana…it was an impressive sight for a newcomer.

Maotelus's hulking form stepped forward, ahead of everyone. "She's here," he said, his head stretched forward as though peering into the distance. "I can feel her."

"She _should_ be here," Rokurou commented; "this is where it happened."

"This way," said the Dragon of Light, and he started walking. Something about his steps almost made it seem as though he was being drawn forward rather than making a conscious choice to move, and Rokurou felt a flicker of something like excitement.

_Velvet._

As the four humanoids followed the divine dragon, Sorey and Mikleo lagged behind, talking to each other about what sounded like the implications of the existence of such a place. Rokurou didn't particularly care, as he rarely cared about anything; so long as they kept pace, and could maybe help with whatever force sealed Velvet away, what they did in the meantime wasn't his concern. Edna was silent, staring at the shimmering ground they walked on, but though she clearly didn't want to be there, Rokurou wasn't sorry she was - as Eizen's sister, she had a right to meet Velvet too.

After a ways, there was a new rift in the earthpulse, and Maotelus entered it without a word.

"What's this?" Sorey asked.

"It's probably going to take us deeper," Edna explained. "There are a lot of layers to the earthpulse, and the place we came in from is the site of a lifepool, where all the world's energy gathers and flows all the way to the center of the earth. That's where the Great Lords rest when they aren't active, and if Innominat is sealed away, it would make sense for him to be there too." And she stepped through, Rokurou right behind her, Sorey and Mikleo a few steps after them.

It seemed Maotelus wasn't stopping, still walking slowly along the path outlined by the twisting trails of the earthpulse, and the mortals who followed jogged a few steps to catch up. Remembering his other experiences in here, Rokurou started keeping an eye out, one hand on his swords.

"Something wrong?" Sorey asked him.

"There are daemons in earthpulses, or there were the last time I was in one," Rokurou replied. "Gotta be careful."

"Daemons? You mean…hellions?" Sorey gasped. "But-! Oh, shoot, I was going to reenact the Prime Lord pact with Lailah!"

"You were?" Mikleo asked.

"Well, yeah," Sorey replied. "I was hoping to travel the world with you, like we always wanted, and we're bound to meet hellions wherever we go. I wanted to be able to quell them, rather than having to kill anything, you know?"

"But to have a Prime Lord pact, you'd have to be the Shepherd again," Mikleo mused.

"Yeah, but without the Lord of Calamity to worry about, I'm sure Shepherds can go off and explore on their own," Sorey reasoned. "But everything happened so fast, I didn't even get a chance to ask Lailah about it…"

"How is Lailah?" The unexpected question came from Maotelus.

"Huh?" Sorey asked, looking up at the giant malak who walked ahead of them. "How do you know Lailah?"

"I know everyone I've granted access to the Silver Flame to," Maotelus replied.

"The Silver Flame…?"

"You don't know?" Rokurou asked the human boy. "That power Lailah tried to use to purify me, Maotelus here was the one who introduced it to the world. It's _his_ power, his gift that he gave when he became the new Empyrian."

"The power of the Shepherd…is the power of Maotelus?" Mikleo gasped.

"You really didn't know!" Rokurou remarked, surprised. "How could you not know something like that?"

"Those who wield the Silver Flame on my behalf are not allowed to speak of me," Maotelus explained, though he didn't slow down. "My power can cleanse malevolence, but I'm as susceptible to its influence as any seraph, so I can't travel the world burning it away on my own; others have to wield it for me so I can keep the world safe. I make pacts with seraphim I know I can trust that grants them access to my power, and they in turn can grant the Silver Flame to the humans who become Shepherds. But after what happened with Artorius, I didn't want any human to know they were using the strength of a Great Lord, so the oath each of my seraph allies takes is to never speak of me or anything related to me, or they'll lose access to the power of purification. That way, no Shepherd knows they're using my power, and have no reason to become corrupt."

"Huh," Rokurou mused. "Makes sense. Good thinking there, Phi."

Though he didn't slow, Maotelus turned his head to look at Sorey. "Sorey, I know you wouldn't become malevolent from knowing you've used my powers," he said, "and I trust your allies to be the same. But you must promise not to tell anyone else what I just told you."

"Oh! O-Of course!" Sorey stammered. "I won't tell anyone."

Maotelus nodded and turned his attention back to the direction he was walking. "As for any hellions we might meet in here, don't worry," he went on; "since we're within the source of my power, I can burn the malevolence away myself. None of you will have to fight."

"Aw, c'mon, let me at least fight one," Rokurou pleaded. "I don't think I've swung a blade once all day!"

Everyone, even Maotelus, stopped and turned to stare at him.

He blinked. "What?"

"That has got to be the most hellion-like thing you've ever said," Edna stated flatly.

"So?"

"Let's just keep moving," Maotelus all but sighed, and he turned back on his path and continued walking.

Just as Rokurou predicted, every now and then there were daemons in their way, but Maotelus engulfed them in white fire that spewed from his jaws, and just like that, they were gone. Rokurou still wished he got to fight, but he had to admit that it was a much more efficient way of removing the obstacles. There were more warps that took them down, layer by layer - more, many more, than Rokurou had ever been in before. Slowly, the blue and sky around them gave way to darkness, the surfaces under their feet attaining a purple hue.

"Are we _inside_ the earth?" Sorey asked at one point.

"Yup," Edna replied. "And we've got a long way to go, if we're looking for a Great Lord."

"Incredible," Mikleo said in a rapturous voice. "Even seraphim never get to travel this deep. We may very well be the first mortals to ever see this place."

"You're serious?" Sorey asked.

"Absolutely," Mikleo answered as they took another warp down to the next layer, and the two engaged in yet another discussion about implications and history that Rokurou was quick to tune out. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that they find Velvet.

The journey seemed to take hours - which was reasonable, Rokurou thought, if they really were going all the way to the very center of the earth. Mana crackled through the air the deeper they went, constellations of power wheeling past around them but never coming close enough to touch. They were approaching the heart of all the world's energy, and the atmosphere, such as it was, grew thicker and thicker.

Finally, after yet another warp down, darkness gave way to luminescence, the world around and below them glowing with an unearthly violet light.

"She's here," Maotelus said, finally coming to a stop.

Rokurou stepped around the Empyrian's hulking figure. There were no more paths, just a vast stretch of crystalized energy…and in the distance, among all the midnight hues, was a shining golden light.

"Velvet?" the daemon breathed, and he ran, his boots all but slipping on the etherial floor, drawing ever closer to the orb of energy that shone like a tiny sun in the celestial space.

_There._

Once he was close enough, Rokurou could see that at the center of the shining orb of energy, two figures were intertwined, one smaller than the other. All at once, he was brought back to that time so long ago, within the crystalized form of Innominat, when Velvet had embraced her starving brother, then began to consume him as he sank his teeth into her. At the time, he hadn't felt much of anything; he never did anymore, after all. But now…

"Velvet," he said softly. "_Velvet_. I found you."

He drank in the sight of her, faint though it was through the glow. Somehow, it felt like home, some grounding factor he had lacked in the centuries since he'd last seen her. There was no real emotion attached, just an instinctual, basic _longing_ that he couldn't place, and yet he felt more complete than he had in all the time he'd spent wandering the earth since he'd lost her.

"So that's them, huh?" Edna asked flatly.

Startled, Rokurou turned and saw that the others had approached behind him, including Maotelus.

"Yeah," he replied, turning back to the sight of his old comrade. "That's Velvet…my Lord of Calamity."

"_Lord of Calamity_?!" exclaimed Sorey, Mikleo, and Edna all at once, their voice shocked, their expressions furious.

"You mean you brought us all this way to release the Lord of Calamity?" Mikleo demanded.

"Whoa, is it really that big of a deal?" Rokurou asked them. "I already told you she was a daemon, it's not _that_ big of a leap to Lord of Calamity…"

"I'd say it is!" Mikleo shouted. "It's a _very_ big deal!"

"I tried to tell you bozos," Edna grumbled.

"Please stop."

Everyone turned to the Dragon of Light as he spoke.

"Velvet _was_ the Lord of Calamity, a long time ago," Maotelus told them, "but she was not an evil person. Back then, the only alternative to the spread of malevolence was to suppress _all_ human emotion, as Innominat did."

"Yeah, and that world wasn't any better," Rokurou chimed in. "We saw his Suppression when he wasn't even at his full strength, and it was horrible. No one felt anything. Anything that didn't somehow serve society as a whole was declared 'against reason' and destroyed. People threw out all the drink they owned." That particular aspect of Innominat's Suppression still haunted him.

"Beauty was gone, as was love," Maotelus picked up. "There was no sadness or hatred or pain, but also no joy. If it had gone on, people would have eventually determined that their own existence was against reason, and lost the will to live."

"That was the cycle the world was in when Innominat led the Five Lords," Edna confirmed dully. "Humanity would grow, their malevolence would awaken Innominat, he would suppress their feelings, and they would destroy themselves until only a few were left, not enough to generate the malevolence he needed to stay awake, so the Suppression would end. Those humans left over would rebuild, and it would start all over." Edna glared at Rokurou. "But the Lord of Calamity is the source of malevolence in the world. We don't want to release that."

"She's not the _source_," Rokurou argued. "Malevolence just happens."

"In any case, we have no wish to see a new Lord of Calamity unleashed on the world," Mikleo stated, crossing his arms.

"She probably won't be the Lord of Calamity anymore," Rokurou said. "The only reason she ended up with the title is because she was trying to stop the guy who was trying to awaken and control Innominat, after he killed her little brother as a sacrifice. I don't think she'd try to do anything so drastic now."

"We've seen the Lord of Calamity before," Sorey said, his voice oddly cold. "The Lord of Calamity is a monster who inflicts pain on any who crosses their path. Someone like that-"

"Well, I wouldn't say Velvet was like _that_," Rokurou insisted. "In fact, come to think of it, I don't think I can ever recall her being actively cruel to anyone, besides maybe Artorius…and even then, she only ever wanted him _dead_, it's not like she particularly wanted him to suffer."

"Velvet taught me what it meant to be alive," Maotelus said softly. "When she took me from the exorcists, I was nothing but a tool. She gave me my first name. She gave me a place…a family. Velvet isn't a bad person. She would do whatever it took to achieve her goals, but she's not evil. She never was."

Sorey and the two malakhim looked between each other.

"…Don't tell me you're thinking of listening," Edna muttered at last.

"Well…it _is_ Maotelus who's talking…" Sorey said slowly.

"There's no guarantee we can even break her out anyway," Mikleo added, and he turned back to the orb of light. "Not if this really is a Mana Wheel…"

The water malak approached the glowing sphere, then slowly raised a hand and placed it against the surface. Energy crackled, and he quickly withdrew. "Such power!" he gasped. "If that's not a Mana Wheel, I don't know what is!"

"Whoa, really?!" Sorey exclaimed, running forward in excitement, all thoughts of Lords of Calamity apparently forgotten. "Incredible…Is there some way we break it, Mikleo?"

"I'm not sure," Mikleo replied, thinking. "The simplest answer would be for it to be broken from within, if some piece willingly removed itself from the cycle, but barring that…the power generated by a Mana Wheel can't be countered by any one source of energy, not even one of the Great Lords. But…perhaps, if we could create one of our own…"

"Wait, could we do that?" Sorey asked.

"Maybe…" Mikleo mused. "In order to even try, we'd need powers from all four elements. Edna and I are here, that just leaves fire and wind…if we could come back with a seraph of each of the elements, and some sort of vessel-"

"Like me?" Sorey questioned as Edna muttered something about coming all the way down here only to have to go back up to get what they needed and come down again being the dumbest thing she'd ever been asked to do.

"No, not that sort of vessel," Mikleo explained. "When you were our vessel, we weren't forced into one space, we were just sort of…roommates. Think of it as the difference between sharing a house and sharing a body."

"Huh," Sorey pondered. "But if each of you granted your blessing to some sort of pure vessel, like the water we got for Uno…"

"A Mana Wheel concentrated into an inanimate object would be dangerous, though," Mikleo went on. "Without a consciousness directing it, the power would quickly grow out of control. Although, it would still probably take a long time for it to build enough to overwhelm one that's been turning for many hundreds of years-"

"Look, I don't know what you two are talking about," Rokurou interrupted. "All I know is that when I find something I need to break…" He drew his weapons with a flourish. "…I let my swords do the talking," he smirked.

"Rokurou-" Maotelus began, but Rokurou was already leaping into the air over Velvet and Innominat, plunging his blades into the golden light.

He expected to be met with resistance as he came down on the Mana Wheel, but Stormhowl and Stormquell sliced through the energy as though it were air. Thrown slightly off-balance for a moment, Rokurou tapped into his reflexes as a Rangetsu to change the angle of his swords just in time as they came between Velvet and Innominat's intertwined figures, Stormhowl sliding neatly between their bodies, Stormquell shoved between Velvet's left wrist - just below her daemon mouth - and Innominat's back. The two weapons stuck fast, only the hilts sticking out, as Rokurou landed on top of them, half-submerged in the seal. With his levers in place, he started trying to pull them apart.

Nothing happened.

Rokurou grunted and strained, pulling first with his arms, then adjusting himself so that his feet pushed too, his entire body thrown into the effort of trying to separate Velvet from Innominat. There wasn't even the slightest bit of give; it was like trying to cut down a tree with a feather, or pull an entire mountain off the earth's surface. He wasn't worried about the swords breaking, he knew they were unbreakable, but no amount of force seemed to accomplish anything at all.

"Hey!" Mikleo called. "I don't think swords can break a Mana Wheel!"

"Rokurou, even my power couldn't pull them apart," Maotelus added.

Ignoring this, Rokurou just redoubled his efforts. "Come on, Velvet," he grunted, not even meaning to speak but finding the words coming out of his mouth all the same. "Come on, I waited a long time and came a long way to find you. It's time to get out of here."

Still nothing.

"Just stop!" Mikleo shouted. "There might be a way, but this isn't it!"

"Come on," Rokurou repeated. "Let him go, it's over, you've done what you needed to do. You've done your time. The world's different now, Velvet, you don't need to be here anymore."

"This is embarrassing to watch," came Edna's emotionless voice. "Let's just leave him here."

"Come back, Velvet!" Rokurou shouted, pushing all the harder. "Come back to the world! I'm not leaving without you!"

Was that a slight shift he felt under his hands and feet as he pushed? The tiniest bit of give?

"Come back!" he cried, raising his voice over a low whining sound that was slowly building in the air around him. "Let him go! Damn it, Velvet, _come back to me_!"

With a sound like a boulder splitting apart, the two legendary swords abruptly jerked in the directions they were being pushed by about an inch, then continued to move under the force of Rokurou's strength. The air crackled with unstable energy as the loops of mana that sealed Velvet with Innominat slowly buckled and gave way, and the noise grew to an earsplitting level. With no thought for what might happen next, Rokurou smiled and gave one final shove.

All at once, the bonds shattered, the energy that had held the two beings in place exploding with tremendous force as it was released. Everyone went flying across the space, including the two who had been at the center of it all, and Rokurou was tossed straight into the air. Swords clattered, people fell, and Rokurou landed hard on his stomach.

Then, all was still.

Maotelus was the first to recover and rise to his feet.

"Rokurou," he said softly as Rokurou pushed himself to his hands and knees. "What have you done?"

"What I came to do," Rokurou responded. "I got Velvet away from Innominat."

Stormhowl and Stormquell were on far sides of the plane they stood on, but thankfully hadn't been tossed into the void; Rokurou ran quickly to gather them and return them to their sheaths. As he did so, Sorey, Mikleo, and Edna walked over to the woman who had been thrown not far from them.

"This girl…is the Lord of Calamity?" Sorey asked in a disbelieving voice. "But…but she looks so…"

"Pretty?" Edna supplied cynically.

"I was going to say, 'young'," Sorey corrected.

"Velvet was sixteen when she was forcibly turned into a therion, one of the Seven Mouths of Innominat, and was imprisoned over an earthpulse point to supply him with power." Maotelus told them. "Only three years later, she broke free and began her quest for revenge."

"Sixteen," Sorey breathed. "She was even younger than I was when Alisha and…and Lunarre…"

"Malevolence doesn't care about age," Edna said. "Even children become corrupted. They often do."

"But still, to be the Lord of Calamity so young…"

His swords recovered, Rokurou ran over to the unconscious woman surrounded by the Shepherd and his malakhim. Velvet looked exactly as he remembered - her long black hair, loosely plaited save for one braid over her left shoulder; her skimpy clothes, all studded belts and tattered cloth; the gauntlet and the greaves; the massive therion claw that was her left arm. Oddly, it hadn't shrunk down to hide under the bandages, staying swollen and daemonic, black and red and vicious. Her eyes were closed.

"Velvet?" Rokurou asked, stepping past the onlookers to kneel down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. She was so still, he half-expected to find her cold, but she was warm. "Velvet, wake up."

Though he could see, now, that her chest was rising and falling faintly, she didn't stir.

"Hey." He gently slapped her face a couple of times. "Velvet, hey, come on."

"Hnnnnngh…" she groaned, and her eyelids fluttered.

Something in Rokurou's chest flipped over. _She's alive. She's really alive. I'm not alone…I mean…What do I mean?_ He brushed off the thought; it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Velvet was here. He'd finally found her, and freed her. _Finally_…

Slowly, her eyes opened, that same golden-brown he remembered. They were hazy, unfocused, confused, but she locked onto him right away. "Rokurou…?" she rasped.

"Hey, Velvet," Rokurou smiled. "It's been a while."

"What happened to your clothes?"

"Huh? Oh!" Rokurou shook his head, laughing slightly as he realized how different his garb - a blue tunic, rough-spun brown pants, leather boots, and unbound hair - was from the last time she'd seen him; it was something he'd stopped thinking about a long time ago. "That's, uh…that's a long story…"

"Can't be too long," she commented. "I just saw you in Taliesin last week."

Absolute silence met this statement. Rokurou was too baffled to even ask what she meant; nothing about these words made any sense.

While he was trying to puzzle it out, Velvet started to push herself into a sitting position. As she did, she looked down at herself, then gasped.

"My arm!" she exclaimed, staring at her therion claw. "What's wrong with my arm?!" Her golden eyes, now wide and alert, turned on Rokurou with alarm, then kept going, as she looked around at the space they sat in.

"Velvet, you're…a daemon, remember?" Rokurou asked, confused. "That's how you eat?"

"Where am I…?" she asked, apparently not hearing him. "What is all this…?" Eventually, her eyes found the distant form of Innominat where he'd been thrown by the breaking of the Mana Wheel. "Laphi?" she gasped. "Laphi!"

And without another glance at Rokurou, Velvet rose to her feet and ran for the ancient malak.

"Uh…" Rokurou also got to his feet, slowly, utterly dumbfounded. He glanced at Maotelus. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I don't know," the Empyrian replied, gazing at the now-distant form of Velvet as she knelt by Innominat's unmoving figure.

"Laphi," she rasped. "Laphi…" She turned him over, cradling him in her arms. "But…but you're not Laphi…"

"Sister."

Innominat's voice, ever calm and empty, came from across the earthpulse. Hearing it again, Rokurou distantly noticed that Edna's voice actually wasn't emotionless at all - her tone was more of a calloused apathy laced with traces of bitterness. Innominat, on the other hand, truly spoke with no emotion whatsoever, as though he was completely without any sort of feeling, and always had been.

"Laphi!" Velvet exclaimed. "I…I don't know what's going on, but we'll find a way home, won't we? We're all going to go fishing in the stream in Tranquil Woods in the morning. After all that work gathering bait, Fifi and Celica would never forgive us if we missed it!"

_Fifi?_ Rokurou wondered. _Who's that? And…_ "Isn't Celica dead?" he called. "Celica was…your sister, right? The one who was pregnant with Phi, and got eaten before he was born?"

"Eaten before…?" Velvet breathed.

"It was a beautiful dream, sister," Innominat said softly. "Thank you."

"Wh-?" Velvet stood abruptly, her eyes wide. She looked down at her daemon arm, which still hadn't reverted its form. Staring at it, she lifted it, and then at last it shrank down, the red-and-black skin thoroughly covered by bandages. "But…no, we…this isn't…it's…it's a lie. It's a lie! This isn't real! _It's a lie_!" she roared at the top of her lungs.

Innominat stood, watching Velvet with his ever-passive expression.

"Laphi!" she shouted, dropping to her knees as she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "This isn't real, this can't be real! We…we were happy! We were happy, in Aball!"

"No," Innominat said simply. "That was a dream you conjured when you sealed me away. This is reality. Although…I'm curious as to how the seal was broken." He turned, and was the first to notice the audience they had. His mouth opened when he saw Rokurou, but then his eyes found the Dragon of Light, and his jaw went slack. Ignoring Velvet, who was clutching her head in both hands, he floated over to what had once been a piece of him. The dragon lowered his head and met Innominat's gaze; the two appeared to be speaking without words.

"No, no, no," Velvet moaned, her head shaking wildly. "_No_…"

"Velvet?" Rokurou approached her, not sure what was going on but determined to help. "What's going on? You've been trapped here, eating and being eaten by Innominat, for fifteen hundred years. Why are you so upset to be free?"

"Eating…" she murmured under her breath, her voice unreadable. "Being eaten…by…" She shook her head again. "No, no, no…"

"Uh…" Unsure what else he could say about any of it, Rokurou reached into his bag and pulled out the priceless gift he'd worked so hard to have made, just in case this day ever came: a hiltless blade. "Um…I remember your weapon broke during the fight with Artorius," he told Velvet, holding it out to her. "I tried to have a smith forge you a new blade. I hope it works, your kind of weapon isn't exactly used nowadays…"

"My blade…" Lowering her hands from her head, Velvet clenched and flicked her right hand, like she used to when she released her weapon, but nothing happened. Apparently genuinely confused, she took off the gauntlet, turned it over, and fiddled with it until a single ragged scrap clattered to the ground, all that remained of the blade she'd used so long ago. Slowly, as though dazed, she turned and gently grasped the strip of metal Rokurou held out to her. With a practiced flourish that didn't seem conscious, she slid the new blade into the slot, and it clicked into place. Replacing it on her arm, she gave a slight flick of her wrist, and the weapon sheathed itself.

"Oh, good," Rokurou sighed. "I was worried it wouldn't work!"

"The blade broke," Velvet said softly, distantly. "Broke during…the fight…with Artorius…"

"Yeah," Rokurou encouraged her, "yeah, it did. But you won, remember?"

"I…won…" She shook her head. "Arthur's forgotten maxim," she murmured: "don't despair, no matter what."

"That's right!" Rokurou cheered. "See? You remember!"

"Remember…" she echoed, her voice still distant, and his confidence faltered.

"Seriously, what has you so confused?" Rokurou asked. "I would have thought you'd be happy I busted you out."

"You…" Velvet's golden eyes, the eyes he'd seen in his dreams for centuries, turned on him once more, and a spark lit in their depths. "You did this?" she asked him softly.

"Yep!" Rokurou answered proudly. "You can thank me later."

"Thank…?" To his surprise, Velvet's fists and teeth clenched, and she began shaking. "I…I had the life I wanted. A normal, human life, with my brother and sister and brother-in-law and nephew and best friend. We were all happy together. I even had you, and Eizen, and Eleanor, and Magilou, visiting me in Taliesin every week. We were happy. And you…"

She stood, slowly, dangerously, fire blazing in her eyes now, and Rokurou realized he had stumbled into something completely unexpected.

"_You took that away from me_!" she shrieked, her blade and therion claw both bursting free at once, and she hurled herself at him with the full force of a daemon lord.

* * *

**I seriously hope anyone besides me paid attention to the images that show up during the credits sequence of Tales of Berseria, or this twist is going to make zero bloody sense. XD**

**Also, for anyone who's annoyed that I introduced the concept of a Mana Wheel and then basically swept it under the rug: I put that here so that something I have planned for the sequel fic I'm going to write doesn't come completely out of nowhere. The idea WILL pay off eventually, I promise, it'll just be a while. Also also, in case you were wondering, no, Rokurou's swords weren't what broke the seal.**


	5. Tears That Cloud Your Vision

Only a fraction of a second before it was too late, Rokurou drew his unbreakable swords and blocked her. Velvet spun away, then lunged at him again, screaming like a wild beast.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Sorey called from the sidelines.

"No."

Innominat and Maotelus both spoke simultaneously, the former raising a hand to stop Sorey from taking a step forward.

"Let them fight," said the two divine beings as one. "This is something they must do."

And they turned back to each other to resume their silent conversation, ignoring the two clashing monsters just beyond them.

Velvet's fighting style was unique, one that Rokurou remembered but found he couldn't easily counter - her right hand wielded the freshly-forged blade, her left hand channeled her daemon power, and when neither of those was an option, her legs were just as deadly with their elaborate kicks. What was more, her moves weren't calculated; instead, she attacked with a blind rage, clearly not planning ahead of each move she performed. Rokurou couldn't read her, couldn't predict what she would do, because she wasn't thinking. It was like fighting chaos itself, and Rokurou, a man who fought with measured precision and discipline, was startled by how effective this was against him.

_Is this what I'm missing?_ he wondered at the back of his mind, under the cold, intense state he entered when he fought. _Chaos? No…No, that makes no sense, Shigure wasn't chaotic…_

Still, he managed to hold his own. Swing, block, jump, kick, roll, lunge…the fight took them all over the space where Velvet had once rested, neither giving ground and neither gaining any either. In the throes of battle, Rokurou didn't really think about how this was Velvet, the woman he'd waited and worked so hard to rescue; she was just an opponent, and a worthy one at that. He made no attempt to avoid hurting her, he just fought, like the war daemon he was, utilizing every bit of skill and training he'd had over the last fifteen hundred years with his legendary swords - and it took everything he had, as Velvet seemed tireless in her fury, sometimes roaring at him like a dragon as she tried to consume him through her therion claw. Whatever it was she was so angry about, clearly it didn't matter that destroying Rokurou wouldn't change anything. No; she was the therion of hatred, and so hate she did.

They fought on.

After several minutes of this, Mikleo cleared his throat. "Is this…wise?" he asked, the question not directed at anyone in particular.

"If you want to try to get between them, be my guest," Edna said dully.

Mikleo watched the two fighting beasts and winced. "Point taken."

Long ago, Rokurou's fight against Rose had come down to who had more stamina, but even that wouldn't decide this battle. By the time Velvet showed any signs that her anger was burning her out, Rokurou was sore, only his absolute focus keeping him going; and yet, she once she started to tire, she tired quickly, catching up to his level of fatigue. Both of their moves started to grow clumsy at the same time, and still they hadn't managed to do any real damage to each other, their daemonhood having granted them resilience against blows normal humans and even malakhim couldn't have withstood.

Finally, both at the end of their strength, Velvet and Rokurou hurled themselves at each other at the same time, blocked each other's attacks, pushed each other away…and both fell to the ground.

All was still.

Rokurou struggled to push himself up, but his muscles shook, and his body would not obey. With all the strength he could muster, he looked up, across the battlefield, and saw that Velvet was in the exact same position.

_A draw._

Though he hadn't lost, he hadn't won, either. Part of him knew he should be impressed with himself for even holding his own against the former Lord of Calamity, but this was a far more bitter feeling than a loss. At least with a loss, there was still a clear victor in the fight, but the only draw he'd ever been in had been his fishing competition with Eizen, in which they had both failed to catch anything, and fishing wasn't his passion. Fighting, though…and coming to a _draw_…

Gasping for breath, Velvet spoke.

"I…hate…you." she panted, her voice raw. "Ro…kurou. I…_hate…_you. You…ruined…_every_…_thing_…"

"You…were being…eaten," he rasped. "How…could…I know…you weren't…in pain?"

"You…don't…care!" she spat, venom in her breathless voice. "Ro…kurou…Ran…getsu…has…no…cares!"

Despite his heaving chest, Rokurou managed a slight chuckle. "Got me…there," he admitted.

For another long minute, they just struggled to get their wind back. Rokurou hadn't fought so hard in his life since Shigure, nor had any battle he'd ever fought in his life lasted for so long, and he didn't even have a victory to show for it. But though this stung, it also reinforced what he'd sensed for so long: whatever he was missing, Velvet could help him find it.

The first to move, surprisingly, was Innominat, who finally turned away from the Dragon of Light to face the two fallen combatants, specifically Velvet.

"Sister," he intoned.

Still panting, Velvet lifted her head to look at him.

"My counterpart has told me what transpired since we were sealed away," he said, his blank eyes meeting hers. "He has been given the mantle of supreme Empyrian, in my place. Now, I cannot consume him; he can only consume me."

"Laphi…" Velvet breathed.

"I was willing to die so that you could live a happy life," Innominat said, his voice ever without emotion, "but you no longer deserve to be happy. You are a monster. And yet…" He closed his eyes, a faint smile playing about his lips. "In the dreams we shared while sealed together, you showed me the life you wanted, not just for yourself but for me as well. That such beautiful dreams can still live in your heart…perhaps a monster is not all you are."

"In my…heart…" Velvet repeated.

"Thank you, sister," Innominat said opening his eyes to meet hers once more, and for once, a spark of emotion lit his voice. "You gave me the life I never got to live. Now, I can be at peace. The part of me that is Laphicet can finally rest, having seen a full life, even if only in a dream. And the part of me that is Innominat…no longer matters. It is time for me to rest."

"Laphi…!" Velvet croaked, struggling to stand.

"My final wish for you is this," Innominat said: "find the kindness still in your heart, and destroy the monster within you. You do not deserve to be happy as you are now, but you can earn your way back to deserving happiness. I believe that now. But you must earn it. Earn the right to live a good life…and then, live it. That is what I want for you, my sister."

With that, the boy dissolved into a cloud of light, and Maotelus opened his mouth, sucking in all that remained of the Nameless Empyrian.

"_Laphicet_!" Velvet wailed. Still unable to stand, she crawled and clawed her way towards the Dragon of Light. "_Laphicet_!"

"He is at peace now," Maotelus said.

"Spit him out, you monster!" Velvet roared. "Spit him out!"

"Monster?" Maotelus repeated. "Have you forgotten me, Velvet?" In the dragon's chest, light revealed the image of the boy malak he had once been, with one curl of hair that sprung up and around like a halo instead of lying flat.

"Phi…?" Velvet gasped.

"After you sealed Innominat away, a new Great Lord was needed to take his place, and maintain the balance between the other four," Maotelus told her, the image fading. "I took the role. For you, Velvet. Because you wanted me to live. And I gave the world the Silver Flame, so that all hellions could be purified and freed from the darkness. It is a better world than the one you left behind." His massive head bowed slightly. "It has been fifteen hundred years since you left us. I…I'm sorry I didn't free you sooner. I tried."

"I didn't want to be freed," Velvet growled.

"Innominat said that while you were sealed away, you conjured a dream world in which you and he, as your brother, lived out the life you wish you could have had," Maotelus said. "But it was only a dream, Velvet. I'm sorry."

"A dream…" Velvet was just managing to push herself off the ground; now, she collapsed back to her hands and knees…and sobbed.

Watching Velvet weep, her tears falling onto the crystalized energy on which they stood, Rokurou felt an odd skip in his chest, as though a mechanism was trying to start but was missing a piece. He _knew_ that he should be feeling something right now, yet he simply didn't have the capacity for it, and the sensation was unsettling. Odd; he'd never really _noticed_ his missing emotions before…

"Is she…crying?" Sorey gasped.

"Looks like it," Edna commented dully.

"But I thought she was the Lord of Calamity…"

Sniffling, Velvet turned her head, finally acknowledging the interlopers who stood off to the side. "I am," she choked, her voice raw. "I am the Lord of Calamity. Who are you?"

"Uh…Well, I'm Sorey," Sorey began. "I used to be the Shepherd…"

"Shepherd?" Velvet's face twisted into a snarl as she rose to her feet.

"Not like Artorius," Rokurou explained quickly, picking himself up too. "Nowadays, Shepherds are people who use purification to quell daemons."

"Purification…?" Velvet turned to Maotelus. "Phi…?"

"Purification is the power of the Silver Flame," Maotelus confirmed. "I gained control of it when I became the new Great Lord, and I share it with those who would use it well. Now, even those who become corrupted by malevolence can be healed, and returned to normal."

"So daemonblight isn't incurable anymore," Velvet said softly.

"It's a different world, Velvet," Maotelus said. "And you can live in it now, if…"

Without warning, Maotelus opened his jaws and unleashed a torrent of white fire onto Velvet. She raised her hands to block him, but of course it wasn't harmful.

The flames subsided…and nothing had changed.

"She wasn't purified?" Mikleo gasped.

"Definitely still malevolent," Edna confirmed.

"Hey, join the club of incurable daemons!" Rokurou called, grinning.

Velvet unsheathed her blade and aimed it at him. "Shut up, you," she growled.

"Innominat said you wouldn't be receptive to the Silver Flame," Maotelus said. "I had to be sure, though."

"Of course I'm not," she huffed, withdrawing her weapon to face Maotelus again. "After all I've done, there's no changing what I am."

But Maotelus shook his head. "No, Velvet," he said, "only fully-manifested dragons are completely beyond my power, and those take a lot of time and a lot of malevolence to form from a seraph."

"Seraph?" Velvet asked. "A malak, you mean?"

"When I became the new Great Lord, all malakhim became seraphim," Maotelus told her, "and only seraphim have come into being since."

"Wait, there's a difference?" Rokurou exclaimed. "I thought it was just another word for the same thing!"

"There's a small difference," Maotelus said, "one small one: before I became the new Great Lord, malakhim couldn't produce malevolence of their own, but when I took power, for some reason, they all gained the ability to produce malevolence themselves, if only a bit. Between that and the knowledge we gained on the Heavenly Steppes, I told Eleanor to change their common name to the one they should always have had. Still, it's not easy for a dragon to form fully, and at any stage along the way, even seraphim can be saved. Velvet, whatever makes you immune to my power now, it doesn't have to stay that way." He turned his gaze to the ancient swordsman. "That goes for you too, Rokurou," he added. "You could be purified, someday."

"Yeah, I'll pass, thanks," Rokurou smirked. "Being a daemon gives me enhanced strength and eternal youth, why would I give it up?"

"Rokurou…" Somehow, Maotelus's voice sounded sad, as though he was mourning something, but he didn't explain. Instead, he turned back to Velvet. "It's up to you to discover what it is that keeps you malevolent," he said, "and to overcome it. This is something no one can help you with, or it won't mean anything."

"I can't overcome it," Velvet stated. "There's no undoing what I've done. I don't care if everything else in the world can be purified, I can't."

"Can you try?" Maotelus asked. "Please, Velvet, can you try? I want you to have your life back…"

"There is no life for me, even if I could be purified," Velvet said. "There's no point, Phi."

"Rokurou," Maotelus said, turning his attention to the other daemon, who was still giving Velvet some distance. "You can find your way back. Velvet can, too. Please, work together to find what keeps my power from cleansing you. The secrets of malevolence itself might lie with you."

"Even if I was going to do as you say, I would never work with _him_," Velvet growled, brandishing her unbandaged arm in Rokurou's direction.

"At least stop fighting," Maotelus pleaded as Rokurou stared at her in confusion. "Please, Velvet? I understand why you had to fight when you first woke up, but please, no more."

"No promises," Velvet huffed.

"_Velvet_!" Maotelus roared, and she flinched. "I don't want to command you, but if you don't stop this, I will! I lead the Great Lords now, I have the power to force you to stop fighting; don't make me use it!"

Rokurou blinked. "You've changed," he remarked to the Dragon of Light. "I don't think I've ever seen you lose your temper…"

Maotelus shook his massive head. "I'm sorry," he said, more gently now. "But please, Velvet…no more fighting. You're both my friends. I don't want you to destroy each other."

Velvet sighed heavily. "I'll try to avoid it," she grumbled, arms crossed.

For a long minute, no one spoke. What else was there to say?

"Well," Sorey spoke up at last, "we did what we came here to do. We should probably head back now."

"You don't need to tell me twice," Edna agreed, already turning back the way they'd come.

"Come on, Velvet," Rokurou encouraged his former friend, gathering his wits and walking past her to join the group. "Come see what the world's like now. There's no reason to stay down here."

"No, there isn't," she agreed sourly, joining him all the same. "No thanks to you."

Rokurou just shrugged.

~o~

The journey out of the earthpulse was just as long as the journey down had been, and the whole way, Sorey and his malakhim kept casting uneasy glances behind them at Velvet and Rokurou. After a stretch of awkward silence, Velvet took a few steps closer to the non-malevolent members of the party.

"So, you two malakhim," she said. "Seraphs, whatever. Who are you?"

"It's pronounced 'seraphim', but points for trying I guess," Edna told her.

"Seraphim," Velvet corrected.

"Oh, you can see and hear them?" Sorey asked. He gestured to his allies. "This is Mikleo, and this is Edna."

"Edna…"

Velvet's steps slowed, and one by one everyone stopped to stare at her. Her golden gaze was fixed pensively on the small seraph.

"Edna," she repeated. "Are you…? Yes, you're Eizen's little sister, aren't you?" And for the first time since she'd been broken free, Velvet actually smiled. "You look just like him."

Edna gasped and turned away, blocking them out with her umbrella.

"How is Eizen?" Velvet asked. "Is he still around-?"

"No," Edna said shortly. "He's dead."

It was Velvet's turn to gasp in pain. "I'm…I'm so sorry, Edna," she said softly. "Truly, I am. Eizen was a good man. What happened to him?"

"About a thousand years ago, he turned into a dragon," Sorey explained. "Five hundred years ago, we…laid him to rest."

Velvet closed her eyes. "I see," she responded.

"Don't act like you're sad," Edna snapped.

"I am, Edna," Velvet said simply. "Eizen was a good friend. I would have liked to see him again."

"I still say I saw him a little over five centuries ago, a couple of years before I met up with Rose," Rokurou piped up.

The small seraph just grumbled and ran to catch up with Maotelus, keeping pace with the Dragon of Light as everyone resumed walking.

"So Eizen's gone," Velvet mused.

"I'm not so sure," Rokurou insisted.

"I think I'll take his sister's word over yours," Velvet spat. "Anyway…Magilou and Eleanor are long gone too, I take it?"

"Yup."

"And Phi is an Empyrian now, so he might as well be gone…Is there anyone left in the world that I know who _isn't_ you?" Velvet demanded.

"Uh…" Rokurou considered this, and remembered something Lailah had said…had it only been a day ago? Less? "I think Zaveid's still around," he offered.

"Great," Velvet grumbled.

"You know Zaveid?" Mikleo asked.

"Yeah, we crossed paths with him a couple times during that journey I mentioned," Rokurou replied. "I wouldn't say we were exactly allies, but we knew each other, that's for sure."

"What's your connection to Zaveid?" Velvet asked Mikleo.

"Zaveid was our wind seraph, after we…lost our first one," Sorey answered for his friend hesitantly. "We had some trouble with him too, at first, but by the time we took on the Heldalf, he was as valuable a member of the team as everyone else."

"Zaveid does what he does," Velvet said. "I'm surprised he teamed up with anyone, for anything."

"He said needed our help…to kill Eizen," Mikleo said.

This silenced Velvet, and Rokurou saw that her golden eyes were brimming with sadness. Again, he felt that odd skipping sensation, as something he should have felt failed to manifest.

Nothing more was said on the whole way up; Velvet just sulked at the back of the group, Rokurou hyper-aware of her presence. Sure, it hadn't gone the way he'd thought it might, but he'd done it - Velvet was coming home. Something like triumph echoed in the hollow void of his soul, the only thing he was capable of feeling, though he knew it shouldn't have been quite like that. Whatever he was missing, he felt its absence more acutely now, and yet he still preferred this to helplessly wishing that Velvet was free.

Slowly, the darkness gave way to light, to glimpses of the outside world, the energy underfoot turning blue in the filtered sunlight, and at last, they reached the final rift that would take them out and into the surface world. Edna was the first through, clearly eager to get out of the earthpulse; Maotelus followed, and Sorey and Mikleo passed through shortly thereafter. Velvet lingered, and Rokurou stopped and turned to her before he passed through the gate.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"The world," she said softly. "I…I destroyed it…"

"Nah, not really," Rokurou told her. "I mean, yeah, the land shifted a bunch, but besides that, there's really no lasting effects from anything you did. Besides, you know, Maotelus and the Silver Flame."

Still, she hesitated, and Rokurou took a step back.

"Look, just go see for yourself, alright?" he said. "I'm not leaving until you do."

"Well, I can't imagine anything worse than being stuck in here with only you for company," she grumbled, and with that, she walked through the rift.

Rokurou blinked after her for a moment, then finally followed.


	6. Brighter Than Ever

**UPDATE: I have now seen the postgame scenes explaining the difference between malakhim and seraphim, and all the lore attached; I have tweaked Maotelus's explanation of things in the previous chapter slightly to fit what is known, but the fact remains that it is stated that malakhim cannot generate their own malevolence in Berseria while seraphim can generate their own malevolence in Zestiria (like how Dezel would become a dragon from his own thirst for vengeance if Rose wasn't his vessel, i.e. the malevolence would come from within him), so for purposes of this story, it doesn't actually change anything. Thank you to the guest commenter who convinced me to seek out that postgame lore and write a fic less contradictory to canon.**

* * *

Exiting the earthpulse was oddly terrifying for Velvet - after everything she'd done, she didn't really expect there would be much left. She wanted nothing more than to go back, to retreat into the dream she had shared with her brother, but that wasn't an option. When at last she stepped out into fresh air, and felt the sun on her skin, she stumbled, not used to the lack of mana in the atmosphere.

To her surprise, she had stepped out onto the same stone monument from which she had ascended to fight Innominat and Artorius. To the left, the building sheared away, revealing that it had indeed been a long time; also in that direction were Sorey and his two friends, who were exchanging words she didn't pay attention to with a long-haired woman who looked to be another malak - _seraph_, she reminded herself. And to the right…

The sight of a ruined village surrounded by desolate earth made her gasp in pain. Her first thought was that everyone had lied to her…but then her memories started to catch up. There hadn't been a village at the foot of the Empyrian's Throne back when Artorius built it, meaning whatever happened here couldn't have been her fault, because this place had been built _after_ she sealed Innominat away…which meant there were people to do the building after she did so - and not just people, but a society, civilization, humanity.

Rokurou emerged from the earthpulse just behind her, and she quickly took a few steps to get away from him, familiar hatred sparking in her veins. Behind them, the Dragon of Light roared, and the rift closed.

_No going back._

Of course, there hadn't been any going back anyway, but the closing of the rift felt final, a total shutting off of what had been her sanctuary for what everyone said had been fifteen hundred years, though in her dream world, it had only been about twelve years or so before it was shattered. _By Rokurou…_

Anger, hot and familiar, washed over her. Already, the dream she had been living in was fading, distant; this was her reality, this was what she was. She could have spent eternity free of it, but Rokurou just couldn't leave her be, and now she could only be angry, hateful, ever the Lord of Calamity. _What the hell was he thinking?_

Before she could ask, the white dragon sank down and began to fade to a dull gray, light rising from his form. Staring, she watched as the light gathered, descended to the floor, and took a much more familiar shape.

"Phi!" she gasped as the boy seraph emerged from the light. "That really is you!"

"Uh-huh!" Phi grinned. His grin faded, and he added, "But my name is Maotelus now."

"Maotelus," she repeated, pain lancing through her heart. It made sense, of course, that he would cast off the name given to him by the Lord of Calamity when he became the new fifth Empyrian, but…

"It's the true name Eleanor gave me," Phi explained. "It means the same thing as 'Laphicet', but translated into the ancient tongue - 'one who lives'."

"I did always wonder at that," Mikleo commented from off to the side.

Velvet took a breath and accepted this, and smiled at him. "Maotelus," she said again. "I'm so glad you found some reason to live."

"I did it for you, Velvet," he told her seriously. "I became the new Empyrian, so I could build the world you believed in."

"The world I believed in, huh?" she asked, getting down on one knee to reach his eye level. "I'm not sure what you thought that might be…" She trailed off, just drinking in the sight of her old friend. In her dream, her sister had given birth to a child who looked just like him, right down to that errant strand of hair, except his hair had been brown all the way through. What had his name been in her dream? _Was it…Chi…no, Cho…something…?_ Clenching her eyes, she shook her head; the harder she tried to remember the life she'd been living with Innominat, the harder it became to recall anything at all, her seething hatred washing away all memories of joy and peace, real and dreamed.

"Velvet?" Maotelus asked. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," she lied readily, opening her eyes again.

"Are you sure?" he pressed, frowning. "You look…"

Suddenly, he stumbled.

"Phi!" Velvet gasped, reaching out to steady him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," he told her, though he sounded groggy. "My head's just a little fuzzy. Probably something to do with absorbing what was left of Innominat…"

"Absorbing Innominat?!" gasped the seraph Velvet had noticed talking to Sorey and the other serahpim earlier, whirling on them. "Maotelus, why would - _oh_?!"

Halfway through her sentence, the woman jolted, and light began to gather around her in a faint aura. Then, with the sound of breaking glass, it shattered, and she stumbled back.

"Lailah!" Sorey exclaimed.

"She's broken her oath!" Mikleo gasped.

Shaking her head, the seraph named Lailah regained her footing, then ran over to Maotelus.

"I don't care," she said, looking down at the boy with intense eyes. "Maotelus, why would you take such a terrible risk? Innominat is dangerous! You can't trust him to not consume you from within-!"

"No, Lailah, it wasn't like that!" Maotelus insisted. "He _wanted_ me to absorb him!"

"That's exactly what I'm worried about!"

"No, not like that," Maotelus said quickly. "I don't mean like he wanted his power back, he was just giving me what I didn't have. He was ready to rest. And I _felt_ him, Lailah, when I absorbed him - he was relieved! He didn't want to be a Great Lord anymore, I'm not even sure he ever did!"

"Are you sure you weren't just feeling the part of him that was my brother?" Velvet asked.

"Well, he was there too," Maotelus replied, "but…but there was a difference between the two of them. Like a cloud on an otherwise-clear day - it's part of the sky, but you can tell the difference between it and the blue. Laphicet was glad to rest, but I got a weirdly similar feeling from Innominat. Really! He was glad it wasn't his job anymore!"

Lailah shook her head, clearly unconvinced.

"Lailah, I promise, it's fine," Maotelus repeated. "I'm fine, I'm…I'm fi…ne…" His eyes rolled back in his head, and he began to fall.

"_Laphicet_!" Velvet cried, and it was she who lunged forward and caught the tiny Empyrian before he hit the stone floor. Worriedly, she put a hand to his forehead. "You're burning up!" she gasped, and she looked up at Lailah. "Do something!" she shouted. "Help him!"

"There's no need to shout," Lailah told her indignantly, "and if you really care about him, then stop touching him - your malevolence can't be doing any good!"

Velvet gasped, Lailah's words cutting deep. As quickly as she could while still being gentle, she set the small seraph down, then quickly stood up and lunged back several steps, hoping that some distance might help but unwilling to be separated from him until she knew what was going on.

Wordlessly, Lailah crouched down and ran a hand over the air above Maotelus, who wasn't moving at all.

"Is he going to be okay?" Sorey asked, stepping forward. "Lailah, can't you do anything?"

"He's…he's going to be fine," Lailah replied, and she sounded surprised. "It's not what I was worried about at all. More like he's adjusting to the new power he gained from absorbing Innominat." She looked up at Sorey and, incredibly, smiled. "Sort of like when you first became my vessel."

Everyone except Rokurou let out an audible sigh of relief.

"I'll take care of him while he's getting used to it," Lailah went on, looking back down at the boy lying on the floor and sliding her arms under him, not to lift him but more to cradle him like a mother would her child. "He'll be okay. Once he's feeling better, I'll reenact my oath with him."

"Can I count on you to look after him?" Velvet asked sharply.

For the first time, Lailah really _looked_ at Velvet, and Velvet saw her eyes flicker, first with shock, then with sadness. "You…must be Velvet, yes?" she asked.

"Yeah." Velvet crossed her arms. "What of it?"

"You were the Lord of Calamity, once."

Taken aback, Velvet blinked and backed up a step.

"Lailah, you _knew_?" exclaimed Mikleo.

"I didn't know before," Lailah replied, shaking her head, her soft eyes still on Velvet. "But it's obvious from looking at her, and from the amount of malevolence coming off of her, combined with what little Rokurou told us…she couldn't have been anything else."

"I was," Velvet confirmed, regaining her composure. "Is there a problem with that?"

The seraph sighed. "I can do nothing against you without the flames of purification," she said, "and until Maotelus recovers, I cannot regain that power. I only hope the world will not suffer too much for it."

"I'm not interested in causing trouble," Velvet told her, surprising herself with the fact that she was telling the truth. "To be honest, I'm not really interested in being here at all. You can blame Rokurou for that. But if I have to be here, you don't have to worry about me trying to destroy the world. I have nothing to gain from doing so."

Silence met this declaration for a long minute. Velvet refused to flinch at the eyes on her; she was what she was.

"So what happens now?" Edna finally asked no one in particular. "Do we just let the two of them wander off?"

"I guess so," Sorey said slowly. "Once we lead them away from Elysia and out of Aroundight Forest, there's not much else we can do about them, at least for now."

"Before we go," Rokurou spoke up.

Everyone turned to the daemon swordsman, and he approached Sorey with a deliberate stride.

"Shepherd Sorey," he began.

"Uh, I'm not really the Shepherd anymore," Sorey told him.

"Sorey, then," Rokurou corrected himself, not impatiently. Bowing his head, he clasped a hand over his heart. "You helped me with the one thing I couldn't do alone, the one thing I could not stop thinking about in all my time wandering this world. Even though I'm a daemon, and even though Velvet is a daemon too - even after you found out she was once the Lord of Calamity - you helped me."

Velvet rolled her eyes; knowing Rokurou, it was obvious where this was going.

Sure enough, Rokurou dropped to one knee in front of Sorey. "I am in your debt," he declared. "From this day forth, I am yours to command; whatever you ask of me, I shall do, until my debt is repaid."

"Uh…" Sorey looked between his seraphim friends, clearly bewildered. "That's…that's not really necessary-"

"I _must_ repay my debt," Rokurou insisted. "It is the way of my ancestors, we always pay what we owe; as the last surviving member of House Rangetsu, it falls to me to uphold my family's honor."

Rolling her eyes again, Velvet called out, "Why don't you just tell him to kill himself and spare us all a lot of trouble?"

The attention shifted to her for a moment, but she met their stares with contempt and said nothing more. She kept an eye on Sorey, though, as he stared at her with eyes that were far too calculating for such a young face. When he closed them, frowning in deep thought, Velvet felt herself getting curious.

"All right," he sighed at last. "Rokurou Rangetsu, to repay your debt, I have three orders for you. Follow all three, and you can consider your debt repaid."

"I am yours to command," Rokurou repeated.

"First, I need you to swear you won't do harm in the world," Sorey began. "No hurting innocent people, no sowing chaos, nothing that will make me regret letting you live."

"I was already doing that anyway," Rokurou informed him, a smile in his voice. "There's nothing to be learned from fighting people who can't fight back."

But Sorey shook his head. "It doesn't matter whether they can fight back or not, you're not allowed to hurt _anyone_, unless they're completely corrupted by malevolence," he elaborated. "If you find a hellion you want to fight with, I'll make an exception, since it looks like the power of purification won't be available for a while, but that's all."

_Hellion, huh?_ Velvet thought. _Must be what they call daemons now. I wonder what else has changed…?_

Rokurou's shaggy mane dipped, implying a nod. "As you say."

"Second," Sorey went on, his emerald eyes landing on Velvet, "I want you to keep an eye on Velvet."

"What?!" she shouted furiously.

"You and Maotelus both say that she's not a bad person, and having seen her cry, I'm inclined to believe you," Sorey explained, "but she was still the Lord of Calamity once. I'm counting on you to make sure she doesn't become the Lord of Calamity again. She's not allowed to do any harm or cause any mayhem either. You're the one who released her, so that makes it your responsibility to make sure that your decision doesn't destroy the world."

"Grrr…" Velvet gritted her teeth. Who was Sorey to assign a babysitter to her?!

"As you say," Rokurou repeated with another nod.

"And thirdly…" Sorey's green gaze turned to Maotelus, still cradled in Lailah's arms. "Innominat told Velvet to find her humanity," he said slowly, "and Maotelus extended that to you as well. Both of you, Maotelus believes you aren't beyond saving, but you have to find what it is that makes you immune to purification and overcome it. My final order is that you do as he says. Once you and Velvet have both been cleansed by the flames of purification, then - and _only_ then - can you consider your debt repaid."

Velvet blinked. _Damn. This kid's sharper than he looks._

"You drive a hard bargain," Rokurou commented, "but as a Rangetsu, I am honor-bound to obey, and so I shall. I swear to you, by my blades and my blood, I will ensure that neither Velvet nor I cause any harm in this world so long as I draw breath, and that we both will find a way to open ourselves to being purified…" Though his back was to Velvet, she could perfectly envision the smirk that crossed his face. "…someday."

Sorey sighed. "As long as you're not hurting anyone, I won't impose a time limit," he said resignedly.

"You are too generous."

Was this the fifth time Velvet had rolled her eyes during this whole exchange, or the tenth? She'd lost track. _Rokurou and his thrice-damned sense of honor,_ she raged internally. _It's probably his stupid Rangetsu creed that made him drag me out here in the first place…_

"You can stand up now," Sorey added after a moment, and at long last, Rokurou rose from his bow at Sorey's feet.

Another eye roll was definitely warranted.

Then Rokurou strode over to stand by Velvet's side, his chest puffed out proudly. "Well, Velvet," he said, "you heard Sorey. Looks like you're stuck with me."

"Don't pretend this wasn't what you wanted from the start," Velvet spat. "I should just devour you right now."

To her fury, Rokurou _tsk_ed at her. "Yeah, sorry, I can't let you do that," he said.

"Who said anything about _let_?" she demanded, her therion claw bursting free in what was horribly already second nature to her again. She swiped at him, and he quickly drew his blades and blocked her arm. But the idiot used _both_ his swords, and both his hands, leaving him wide open for another attack. Velvet flicked her wrist to unsheathe her blade, raised her right fist, and-

"Velvet…"

The faint croak froze Velvet in place.

"Please…don't…" Maotelus rasped, and she looked over to see his eyelids fluttering as he tried to lift his head. "Don't fight…" he pleaded. "Please, Velvet…don't kill…each other…_please_…"

Suddenly, Velvet was faced with memories of her younger brother - not the one from her dream world, who had recovered from his illness and started training to be an exorcist like Arthur, but from her life before the Advent: Her _sickly_ brother, bedridden with fevers, weakly asking her to bring him a book, or leave the spinach out of her quiche…

_My old weakness,_ she thought with disdain, and she gritted her teeth, warring with herself to just plunge her blade through Rokurou's heart. Try as she might, though, she couldn't make herself do it.

_You told Laphicet to live, and he became the new Empyrian for you,_ said a voice in her head; _the least you can do is grant his request now…_

_But it's Rokurou!_ she shouted at herself. _He ruined everything! He took the only peace I could ever have and ripped it apart!_

Shaking with her internal struggle, Velvet dared a glance at Rokuro's face, expecting a cocky smirk. To her surprise, his expression was dead serious, and what was more, he hadn't made any move to try to defend himself.

"_Please_!" Maotelus cried out, sobbing from the effort.

"Maotelus, please, just rest," Lailah told him softly. "It's okay…"

"Please…" he whispered, the last of his strength gone.

Growling with frustration and hating herself almost as much as Rokurou, Velvet lowered her blade and withdrew it, pulling back from where she'd been pushing against Rokurou's weapons and suppressing her daemon power as he sheathed them.

"You're damn lucky I can't say no to Phi," she grumbled.

"I guess I am," he agreed, and _there_ was the cocky smirk she'd been expecting.

"Um…Velvet?"

Velvet turned to the seraph who still cradled the now-completely-unconscious Maotelus. "What?"

"Why do you hate him so much?" Lailah asked. "He's been coming to us every few days for the past five hundred years to find out if it might be possible to ask Maotelus to help him free you; he's thought of nothing else."

"Well, that's not _entirely_ true…" Rokurou inserted.

"It's clear that, despite his malevolence, he cares for you," Lailah went on. "And all this time, you've been trapped in a cycle of eating and being eaten by Innominat. Why are you angry at him for freeing you?"

There was very little Velvet wanted less than to tell this seraph woman she'd never met about the life she'd lost, the life she could have had, the dream where she'd gotten to live it. "It's complicated," she bit out instead.

"Hmm…" Lailah's ancient eyes clouded over with profound sadness, and Velvet reveled in the rush of anger, comforting in its intensity, that this incited in her. _How dare you pity me?!_ she wanted to shout. _I am the Lord of Calamity!_

But she wasn't. Not anymore.

Her rage gave way to shock, as it fully sank in: she wasn't the Lord of Calamity anymore. She had nothing. No home, no family, no friends, no purpose, not even the title of a daemon lord was hers to claim. All she had was an idiot who thought with his swords and had taken the one thing she had left and shredded it to pieces.

Hatred bubbled through her veins, and she took solace in it. So long as she had hatred and rage, she knew who she was.

"All right," Edna said at last, "let's get these two away from Maotelus, and Elysia while we're at it."

"Edna, would you be willing to take them back out?" Sorey asked. "I, uh…I think I'll stay here a little while." His eyes, oddly, were fixed on Lailah and Maotelus.

"I'm staying wherever you are, Sorey," Mikleo added.

"Sure," Edna grumbled, and she made for the steps that led down from the remains of the Empyrian's Throne. "Come on, you two."

Rokurou followed Eizen's little sister readily, while Velvet took another moment to gather herself. Only the fact that her presence might be harming Maotelus urged her to follow the same path as Rokurou, but after giving him a few seconds' head start, it was enough. Turning her back on the last place she remembered, she walked into a world that had long since forgotten her.


	7. Never-Ending Sorrow

Velvet's first step onto natural ground was oddly jarring.

The dirt underfoot didn't feel quite as barren as it looked - it didn't seem crunchy or dusty - but that wasn't it. There was just something…different, about walking on the earth now, in a way she couldn't really put her finger on. It had been similar stepping out of the earthpulse onto the Empyrian's Throne, but walking on natural ground had a new feel all its own that the ground in her dream world had not. She pondered it for a few moments, then tossed it aside. It was hard to think with the focus of her inherent hatred right in front of her.

As she walked, deliberately lagging behind, Velvet looked around at the ruined buildings they passed, trying to keep herself distracted. None of it felt remotely familiar, but this wasn't as comforting as it should have been. Desolation was desolation, and she couldn't shake the feeling that it was her doing somehow…

Once they reached the outskirts, a small stone monument caught her eye.

"Hm?"

Ignoring her entourage, Velvet approached the rock and knelt down so it was at eye level.

"'Camlann'," she read off the face of the stone. "'Let this be the beginning.' Beginning of what…?" she wondered under her breath.

"The Age of Chaos," came the emotionless answer from behind her.

Velvet turned her head, and saw Edna passively twirling her umbrella.

"Well, that's not what it was supposed to be," Edna went on. "But that's what it turned out to be. Of course, Sorey put an end to the Age of Chaos seventeen years after it began, so, you know, not much of an Age." She shrugged.

"When was this?" Velvet queried.

"A little over five hundred years ago," Edna replied, turning her back. "Come on."

_The Age of Chaos…What I did didn't even deserve that name? _Velvet thought as she stood, again lagging so she wouldn't have to be near Rokurou. _How much more chaos could there have ever been in the world? Have I…been forgotten?_

The thought was surprising in how much it scared her. Why did she even care?

Beyond the ruined village was a stone door that led into the mountain beyond - again, another reminder that this was not the same place it was when she had last set foot on the Empyrian's Throne. Edna opened it for the two former humans, then waited as they passed through before closing it behind them.

"Aren't you going to seal it?" Rokurou asked as the small seraph resumed her pace.

"No need," she replied, her voice still without expression. "That was just to keep Maotelus safe while Sorey purified him. Now, there's nothing beyond this door but old rocks."

"_Purified_…?" Velvet jogged to catch up to Edna. "What happened to Maotelus?" she demanded, her voice harsh.

"It was a long time ago," Edna replied dully, still walking. "Basically, a former Shepherd tried to start a village here, and brought Maotelus along. Things didn't go well, since it was on the border between two nations. The village was occupied by the Rolance Empire, the Kingdom of Hyland invaded, the squatters ran off and left the village to burn, there was a lot of malevolence, and Maotelus became corrupted while the general who had occupied the village was cursed. General Heldalf became the Lord of Calamity, Sorey rose as the Shepherd, and on the way he decided he was going to save Maotelus. So he did. The end."

Somehow, Velvet got the sense that it wasn't nearly as simple as Edna made it sound - such things never were, she knew full well. It didn't seem like Edna wanted to go into too much detail about it, though, so all she said was, "Well then, the next time you see Sorey, thank him for me. Phi…_Maotelus_, is very dear to me, and I'm grateful that someone was there to save him when I was…not."

"I'll tell him you said that," Edna told her, and still, her voice lacked any inflection whatsoever; to Velvet, it was eerily reminiscent of Innominat.

"Rokurou," she said, hanging back a second to give Edna some space. "Is she always like this?" Hatred burned in her chest at being near the daemon swordsman, but there was no one else to ask.

"Yeah, I think this is just how she is," Rokurou replied in that tone that meant he really didn't give a damn, which he never did. "You get used to it, I guess."

"I can hear you, you know."

Both Velvet and Rokurou flinched, remembering a time when Eizen had said those very words to Rokurou. _How does_ he_ remember?_ Velvet wondered, shooting Rokurou a glare before walking after their guide. _It's been fifteen hundred years for him!_

Her thoughts were interrupted by a chittering noise coming from above them. Edna stopped and sighed.

"Seriously?" she muttered, closing her umbrella.

What appeared to be a giant spider dropped down from the ceiling - just the one, but clearly a daemon. Edna sighed again, Rokurou smirked, and Velvet…Velvet felt a surge of irrepressible hunger.

"Move," she grunted, shoving Rokurou aside as her therion claw burst free of the bandages, and in a single swipe, she scooped up the creature and crushed it in her hand.

Blood ran across her tongue, the only flavor she would ever know, and she felt a heady rush of power as the creature gave one pitiful squeal before being absorbed through her second mouth. Delicious, but never satisfying; she had forgotten this feeling, yet it was still familiar. Craving more, she scanned the ruins around her, her claw still out, forever hungry for malevolence. _Enough of Innominat remains, it seems,_ she thought idly as she sought out her next meal.

But the ruins were empty.

"What did you do?" Edna eventually asked.

"I told you," Rokurou replied for Velvet, "Velvet eats her enemies, especially daemons. Malevolence is her favorite."

"You know, the Lord of Calamity is usually all about _spreading_ malevolence, not _eating_ it," Edna commented.

"Yeah, you're going to have to let go a lot of your preconceived notions about Lords of Calamity when it comes to Velvet," Rokurou chuckled.

This exchange happened, and Velvet heard it, but did not register it, nor did she care. Her eyes sought out any movement, any sign of the rest of her meal. "Come on," she growled, "daemons are never alone…"

"Looks like this one was," Edna noted.

"More," Velvet mumbled. "_More_…"

"There are plenty of daemons to eat elsewhere, Velvet," Rokurou told her. "Come on, I can show you where the best nests are."

"Seriously, calm down," Edna added. "We have a ways to go before you're a safe distance from Maotelus."

The name caught Velvet's attention, breaking her out of her ravenous trance. "Right," she said, withdrawing her therion claw. "Lead on."

As at last they continued through the dark ruins, Velvet mentally shook herself. Yes, it had been a while since she'd last eaten a daemon, but it had been even longer since she'd let her hunger consume her like that. Maybe some sort of balance was disrupted now that Innominat only sort of existed…

Eventually, they emerged, on what seemed to be the top of the mountain. Here, at last, were trees, grass, and plants - in fact, the area around the exit was incredibly lush. Despite the rustling leaves and the gentle breeze, however, there was a heaviness in the air that made it hard for Velvet to breathe.

"What is this?" she grunted.

"The malakhim apparently have a settlement nearby," Rokurou explained. "They use their power to keep intruders out. That means us."

"They're _seraphim_ now, idiot," Velvet grumbled.

"Come on," Edna said, ignoring this exchange, "I'll get you away from the domain." And she kept walking.

"Eizen told us once that you and he both came into existence on a mountaintop," Velvet commented to Edna as she followed her to a cliff. "Is this the mountain he meant?"

"No," was Edna's simple reply, and she said nothing more.

For a moment, Velvet wondered if they were actually going to climb down a cliff face, but then Edna turned left into a forest. Rokurou was almost walking ahead of the seraph, which allowed Velvet to keep her distance in peace. Under the leaves, as the 'domain' eased, Velvet let herself absorb her surroundings more and more. Birds sang, insects chirped, flowers bloomed…it was all alive. All intact.

But none of it was familiar.

_Which was the dream?_ Velvet wondered. _My life in Aball with my family, or this?_

A few short moments later, they emerged onto an open hillside, grass and sparse trees as far as the eye could see. Velvet didn't need to ask to know that they were out of the 'domain'; the air felt light, alive, even welcoming. Not that anything would knowingly welcome her.

"Well, I guess I'll leave you here," Edna said dully. "Try not to destroy anything."

"Where are we supposed go?" Velvet asked.

Edna shrugged. "Don't look at me, it's not like there's some sort of safehouse for incurable hellions," she replied. "Figure out your own place, and consider yourselves lucky that you have friends in high enough places to keep us from killing you."

"We do," Rokurou said, and he sounded surprisingly sincere. "Thank you, Edna, for all your help."

"I just tagged along," Edna dismissed, turning her back on them; "Sorey might have done something stupid without me."

"I'm glad I got to meet you, Edna," Velvet said softly. "I'm glad I got to meet Eizen's little sister. Again, I'm sorry he's gone…but I can see him in you."

There was no response to this, though a slight twitch of Edna's open umbrella suggested she had flinched. After a tense moment, the seraph walked back into the forest, and Velvet and Rokurou didn't follow.

At last, the two ancient daemons were alone.

"Well?" Velvet eventually asked him. "What now?"

"I vowed to Sorey that I would keep an eye on you," he replied, "so I'll go wherever you do."

"And what do you expect me to do?" she demanded. "Already, I can tell that there's nothing familiar left in this world! I've never seen this place before!"

"I think this is what used to be northern Midgand," Rokurou said unhelpfully.

"_Used to be_?" Velvet snarled.

"Well, yeah…Remember how you woke up the Empyrians to fight off Innominat, and that that was going to cause all sorts of shifts in the land and stuff over hundreds of years?"

"Yeah, I remember," Velvet grumbled, crossing her arms. "And it's certainly been hundreds of years, right? Tell me, how are _you_ still alive?"

"Meditation," Rokurou answered without a trace of irony.

"_Meditation_?" she repeated.

"Yeah, Lailah mentioned that my body hasn't aged or decayed because I've embraced my malevolence completely," Rokurou elaborated, "but I've managed to keep myself from going crazy by meditating when I find it starting to eat away at me. I didn't really know what I was doing by maintaining that balance, but I guess it makes me immortal."

"Of course it does," Velvet muttered.

"I'll teach you how to meditate too, if you like," he offered. "Apparently, maintaining absolute focus keeps malevolence from leaking out of me into the surroundings, too, so we could easily stay in a town or a city without causing any trouble."

"I'll pass." The last thing Velvet wanted was to take any sort of lesson from the monster who had destroyed her peace, let alone lessons on _focus_ and _meditation_ \- the words alone made her think of Artorius and his damned reason.

"In any case, I'll show you how the world's laid out now," Rokurou continued. "For starters, up ahead…" He gestured in the direction they had faced when they emerged from the forest. "…just a little that way, is the city of Ladylake. People actually built an entire city in the middle of a lake, can you believe it?"

In truth, Velvet was curious how such a thing happened, but she didn't want to give Rokurou the satisfaction of admitting he'd said something interesting. "Just leave me alone, Rokurou," she said coldly, turning her back.

"I can't do that, Velvet."

"I'm not going to cause any trouble, or do anything that would make you break your stupid oath," Velvet sighed angrily. "I just need some time to think. Can you please give me that, at least?"

"That depends on where you're going," he replied firmly, "and you don't know where anything is, you just said so yourself."

"I'll avoid civilization as much as I avoid you," Velvet told him. "Does that satisfy you?"

"No."

Velvet snarled at him.

"Alright, look," he relented, holding his hands up, "like I said, if you take this path, you'll find Ladylake, it's hard to miss. Before you cross the bridge into town, if you follow the lake's shore to your right, it'll eventually take you to a forest that no one has settled in. I've spent a lot of time there myself, trust me, people don't go that way. I'll stay here and leave you alone for now, but after nightfall, I'm going to have to come after you. Deal?"

_You're in no position to be making deals,_ Velvet thought, but she knew she couldn't really ask much more of the honor-bound swordsman. "Fine," she huffed, and she stalked off.

The few creatures that crossed her path were eaten by her arm.

~o~

It took a little while, but by following Rokurou's directions, sure enough, Velvet found herself in a forest that didn't seem to have any roads or paths leading into or out of it. What was more, somehow, it felt faintly like home…the home she'd lost. Once she was thoroughly lost in the woods, with no trace of any sort of clearing visible in any direction, she finally allowed herself to sit down against a tree trunk and breathe.

Exhausted, but finally feeling as though she had her privacy, she started going over the events of the day, absorbing everything that had happened, everything that was around her now. Even outside the 'domain' Edna had mentioned, there was still that distinct feeling of a _difference_ in the world, in the earth and the air and the sky, from what she had grown used to in her shared vision with Innominat - a more intense, solid feel. Whether it was because this was reality, because she was a daemon again, or because the world had just changed so much since she had been sealed away, it didn't matter; it suggested that she was awake, that this was a reality different from the one she'd been living in for so long.

_Laphi said we shared the dream,_ she thought, remembering her brother's last words. _He said I created it, because it was what I wanted most in my heart._

_…__Hah. What heart?_

She had embraced her role as a daemon lord centuries ago, and all her time in limbo hadn't changed that, not now that she remembered exactly what she was, what she had done. Laphi's assertion that she could earn her way back to deserving a happy life was a joke, and a bad one at that. What future was there for someone like her, let alone in this new world ruled by the Silver Flame that, try as it might, simply couldn't release her of her sins? No…there was no answer.

At least Rokurou wouldn't be able to repay his debt to Sorey, even if she didn't do any harm in the world. That was definitely something to be thankful for, but it left her without anything to do, any purpose in life. For all her rage, she didn't really _want_ to destroy the world, or sow chaos and mayhem in civilization, not if it didn't benefit her somehow, and it didn't. But what else could she do with her existence? She had no family, no home, no friends…not even any enemies, really, besides Rokurou. There was nothing for her in this world, nothing at all.

After a while of letting the weight of everything sink in, she was hovering at the edge of sleep, the sky darkening through the leaves. She didn't fight it. Having a bed didn't matter - this wasn't her happy life, the one she got to share with her family. No; she was a fallen daemon lord, alone but for the one who had destroyed her happiness. If some wild animal - or daemon - wanted to pick a fight with her in the middle of the night, that was their funeral…

Rustling leaves jolted her from her half-slumber; the forest was dark by then, the only source of light a few wan rays of moonlight shining through the treetops. Still, Velvet was a daemon, the dark wasn't difficult to see in, and she stood, bandaged arm at the ready in case a meal was wandering her way. The sound grew closer, more distinct. It sounded like…boot steps.

_Rokurou. Of course._ Velvet let her arm drop as the daemon swordsman came into view from around a tree. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I told you I would come and find you after nightfall," he shrugged. "Sorey ordered me to keep an eye on you, after all."

"And you searched the entire forest to find me here?" Velvet sighed and sat back down. "You and your damned honor…"

"It wasn't that hard," he dismissed, taking his own seat beneath a tree facing her. "I've spent more time in these woods than anywhere else, and I knew what kind of spot you would try to find."

"Did you now?" she growled, angry that he was acting like he knew anything about her.

Rokurou just shrugged, settling against his tree. There was silence between them for a minute.

"So," Velvet said at last. "What have you been up to the last fifteen hundred years, besides meditating?" Might as well.

"Training," he replied readily. "Cutting down anything I can find with Stormhowl and Stormquell. For a couple of decades there, I trained people in the Rangetsu style so my family's techniques wouldn't die out, but when I realized I wasn't aging, I had to fake my death and go into hiding, so our legacy wouldn't be tarnished."

"Faking your death doesn't tarnish your legacy?" Velvet asked pointedly.

"Better than my students finding out that they were learning from a monster," Rokurou said, his tone surprisingly grave. "So long as they believe I died an honorable death, my family's techniques and legacy will remembered with the honor they stood for. It's the best I could ask for." He shrugged. "After that, I tried to stay out of the way of society in general. Once everyone who knew my face was dead, I started stopping in towns every so often for a drink and a bed." Suddenly, he smirked at her. "I miss your cooking, though."

"Whatever."

"Would you tell me why you're so mad at me?" he asked exasperatedly. "I feel like you should be thanking me for breaking you out of Innominat's grasp…"

"I already told you," Velvet said darkly. "I had everything I wanted. A perfect life, without daemons or malevolence. My sister lived and gave birth to her son, my brother stopped getting fevers, I taught the family quiche recipe to my best friend, you and Eleanor and Eizen and Magilou visited Taliesin every so often…It was everything I ever wanted and more."

"…And?" Rokurou asked after a minute.

"What do you mean, 'and'?" Velvet snapped.

"Well, it wasn't real," he said. "It was just a dream, like the one Melchior made for you in Aball that one time, remember? And you said then that it was better to remember what really happened, rather than hide from reality. What makes this so different?"

Outraged, Velvet opened her mouth, only to discover that she couldn't find the words to argue his point. What _did_ make it different? It was definitely different, she knew it was, but…

Rokurou's smirk made her want to break something. Something big.

"I…I still had things to do, when Melchior cast his arte," Velvet managed at last. "To put it in words _you_ might understand, I still had debts to pay. Revenge to seek. Once Artorius was dead, everything I had to do in this world was resolved. I should have just died, there was nothing left for me. Instead, I…I was given peace. Heaven, of sorts. Heaven that _you_ tore down."

"I still don't get why you hate me," Rokurou shrugged. "There's no way _I_ could have known that that was happening to you. For all I knew, you were in pain."

"Don't pretend like you cared," Velvet spat. "You don't care about anything."

"Maybe not, but I still couldn't possibly have known that breaking you out of the earthpulse wouldn't be doing you a favor," Rokurou reasoned. "Even if I'd known you were in some sort of heaven, I wouldn't have any reason to think you'd see it differently from what Melchior did."

"I swear you weren't this oblivious in my dream world," Velvet sighed. "I guess I gave you too much credit."

"Or maybe it's just that everyone doesn't see things the way you do now that you're in reality," Rokurou suggested.

Cheeks burning with anger, Velvet looked away, glaring into the dark forest, as a forgotten aspect of her dream world surfaced in her mind. Out here, it had been fifteen hundred years, but in her dream world, it had been about twelve, starting the day before what had been the Advent in reality. Laphi had recovered from his illness, and Celica had been around to take care of them all, so Velvet had had more time to develop relationships - at age thirteen, she had shared her first kiss with Niko…but by the end, though she still taught Niko the family quiche recipe like she'd promised, that flame had died out, they had moved on as best friends, and she had found herself beginning to think fondly of Rokurou instead, even had thoughts that he might be the one to join her family soon.

But that wasn't _this_ Rokurou. That Rokurou was a dashing swordsman with a kind and noble heart; _t__his_ Rokurou was oblivious, thought with his swords, and lacked most human emotions. The Rokurou she had grown fond of didn't exist, and probably never had. She had to get used to that.

"Well, I can see that there's no point in talking about anything else tonight," Rokurou said at last. "When you're mad, you just stop thinking." Infuriatingly, the corner of his mouth quirked up. "I kind of missed that about you."

"I don't suppose you have a home?" Velvet asked, ignoring this. "A hideout? A base? Something?"

"Nope," Rokurou replied cheerfully, and she ground her teeth. "I've tried to keep moving around the continent, not stay in one place too long. No point searching for a new adversary in the same area all the time, you know?"

"So you have nothing," Velvet said flatly. "And I have nothing. What am I supposed to do?"

"I have a bit of gald," Rokurou offered; "we can stay at an inn. The one in Ladylake isn't too bad."

"Can't," Velvet grunted. "I'm too malevolent. We'd just cause problems. You'd break your oath." Not that that would be a bad thing.

"I don't know if one night would cause too much havoc," Rokurou mused. "You spent more than a single day at a time in towns back in the day without any trouble - and now there's natural purification in the earth, malevolence isn't as dangerous as it used to be."

"Without trouble, apart from the towns I terrorized," Velvet muttered.

"Look, if you just want to sleep out here, then…" Rokurou stood and walked over to her.

Velvet narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"We'll sleep back-to-back," Rokurou said, sitting down beside her. "There's nothing that can hurt us when we're awake, but it's better to make sure nothing gets the jump on us."

"You're really committed to keeping an eye on me, aren't you?" Velvet sighed resignedly. "Fine. Back-to-back it is." _I hate you._

"Maybe tomorrow, you'll have calmed down enough that we can figure out what we're going to do," Rokurou said, settling in the grass and yawning.

"There's nothing _to_ do," Velvet said.

"We'll talk tomorrow," Rokurou repeated. "I'm tired anyway; I had to get all ten thousand practice swings in before I came looking for you."

"You're still doing that?" Velvet asked, surprised that she was surprised.

"My training isn't over," Rokurou stated. "And maybe soon, I'll figure out what I'm missing."

"Good luck with that," Velvet muttered, but she settled on the ground, her back to him, and closed her eyes.

Despite the uncomfortable setup, and the nearness of her most hated enemy, she quickly fell into a deep sleep.


	8. Take the Next Step

**Trigger Warning: This chapter contains violence that is not quite implied to be sexual in nature; I have upped the maturity rating after some deliberation, but for those who were following along beforehand, you are warned. This story is dark, and it will get darker, though the only chapter worse than this one in terms of potential triggers will be chapter 10.**

* * *

Waking in the undergrowth next to Rokurou was almost as confusing for Velvet as first being torn out of her dream world had been.

At first, she searched her dream memories, wondering if she'd finally let Rokurou convince her to drink and she had confessed her feelings to him in a drunken haze. But when she looked down at herself and saw her bandaged arm, the truth came rushing back to her like a stone thrown at her head.

A daemon. No happiness. No family. Nothing but a bumbling idiot who thought with his swords.

Groaning from more than just stiffness, she got up, surprised nothing had attacked them in the night. Disappointed, too; she was hungry. There were daemons around here, weren't there? Seeing none immediately present, she decided to start looking, half-hoping she would lose Rokurou in doing so.

The morning was peaceful, belying the terror that lurked beneath the trees, searching for a meal; birds sang, and a gentle sunlight fell in dappled patches through the forest canopy. But was eerily quiet besides that - the sound of her boots in the grass was far too loud.

_I can't have forgotten how to hunt,_ Velvet thought. _I did it all the time before I turned, and even in my dream - it's more a part of me than being a daemon is. The grass must be crunchier now for some reason._

_Wait, why do I want to be silent? Anything worth eating would come _towards_ the noise…_

She shook her head, still fighting her dream memories. This would take more getting used to than she'd anticipated. Why had it been so easy the previous day…?

_"__When you're mad, you just stop thinking…"_

"Rokurou," she growled under her breath, hating him for even coming to mind.

"Yes?"

Startled, Velvet whirled around, her blade unleashed. The daemon swordsman was a few feet behind her, wearing his usual cocky smile.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked her.

"Looking for something to eat," she snarled. "Unless something comes along soon, I'll have to settle for you, Maotelus be damned."

"Never would have expected you to talk like that about Phi," Rokurou commented.

"Shut up!" she roared.

"In any case, you won't find too many daemons around here," he went on, walking past her. "Come on, I know where the nearest nest is."

"You-" Several questions popped into her mind at once. "You were worried about daemons attacking us in the night!"

"Well, there are _some_ daemons around here," Rokurou said patiently; "there are some everywhere. It's not wise to fall asleep out in the open. But if you're really hungry, wandering around looking for a random daemon or two won't get you much."

"I hate you," she grumbled, but she followed him.

They walked for what felt like an hour, and nothing showed up. Rokurou strode with confidence, but Velvet truly couldn't tell if it was feigned or not. Did Rokurou _ever_ have a plan?

…Did he?

"Rokurou."

The daemon swordsman stopped and turned to face her. "Yes?"

"Did you have any plan for what you'd do after you pulled me out of the earthpulse?" Velvet asked him. "Any idea where you'd go after that? What I might do, in a world I know nothing about and don't belong in?"

"Nope," he replied.

"Then why did you do it?!" Velvet demanded, her rage rising once more. "Why did you bring me back, Rokurou?! Tell me, right now!"

"Velvet…" Rokurou sighed heavily. "I've been wandering this world for hundreds of years," he told her, "with only one goal in mind: to get stronger, strong enough to surpass even Shigure. But…I can't. I've worked, and searched, and trained, and still I'm not as strong as he was, not even close. I'm missing something. I don't know what, or why, or how, but something is just missing and I can't find it."

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"Whenever I'm not training…whenever I'm at rest…I haven't been able to think of anything but you," Rokurou replied, and Velvet recoiled. "I don't know why," he went on. "I don't know why everyone else we travelled with has faded from my memory, one by one, even Eizen, while memories of you have remained so vivid. I don't know why thoughts of you have haunted me whenever I'm not in battle. Maybe whatever I'm missing has something to do with you, or maybe it doesn't, but I had no better ideas. Somehow I just know…whatever I'm missing, you're my only hope of finding it."

"So you did it for yourself," Velvet snarled. "All that talk about not knowing if I was in pain, not knowing I was happy, that had nothing to do with it."

"I'm not saying that," Rokurou responded calmly. "I _have_ thought about those things. But in the end…well, I'm a daemon, Velvet. Of course I'm going to do things for myself. Would you really expect any different of me?"

No, of course she wouldn't, but the answer angered her all the same, wrath and hatred flowing through her veins instead of blood. Her therion claw burst free without her willing it, and Rokurou just smiled at her.

That was a mistake.

With a roar, Velvet lunged at him, as angry as she'd been in the earthpulse just yesterday. His one good eye gleaming, Rokurou drew his swords and blocked her. This time, there was no Maotelus to stop her, so she unsheathed her blade and aimed it straight for his chest; too quickly, he rolled backward, away from her onslaught, only to leap to his feet, both greatswords brandished, and she hurled herself at him again.

_This time, I'll kill him!_ she thought, forgetting in the heat of the moment that she was forbidden to do so. _I'll devour him! He'll pay for taking me away from my brother!_ Nothing else was in her mind; her eyes saw only an enemy, the face of everything that stood between her and happiness, as she threw everything she had at the ancient daemon.

Though her techniques were versatile and she always had options, Rokurou was frustratingly quick, his swords weaving a web of metal that she couldn't penetrate no matter how hard she hit. Still, he couldn't do much but block her, though he did try to strike back once or twice - this left him open, almost open enough for her to devour him, though he always managed to dodge at the last possible moment. Even the idea that he might wear her out didn't occur to her - with her fury burning hot and strong, it felt like she would never tire. To hate was her life, her purpose, and she reveled in it.

Grass was torn up in strips, trees were toppled, underbrush was smashed to pieces, and neither combatant noticed. They only fought, ultimate discipline and ultimate chaos, destroying the surroundings but never doing much harm to each other, no matter how they tried. Rokurou, too, had forgotten his debt to Sorey in the heat of battle, and tried just as hard as Velvet to claim victory…but there would be no victory, for anyone.

After raging at each other for what felt like hours, they both lunged at each other blade-first, both angled to avoid each other's blows, and when they both missed, they both tumbled to the ground, and found that they couldn't stand. Velvet clawed at the destroyed earth, desperately trying to rise to her feet or even her knees, but even her daemon arm would not obey. She gasped for breath, her whole body burning and shaking, hating her weakness, hating that she couldn't lay a claw on the cocky war daemon.

"Another draw," she heard him pant from across the clearing their fight had created. "Damn…"

"You…just…wait," she forced out. "I'll…kill…you…"

"We're not…supposed…to kill…each other," he said.

Velvet closed her eyes. _Damn. That's right._

What did it really matter? It wasn't as if she could ever be purified or build any sort of future. And yet…and yet she couldn't say no to Phi. He'd begged her not to kill Rokurou…and…he wanted her to try. Her brother had wanted her to try. Though she knew it was hopeless, with all that remained of her family counting on her, she just couldn't bring herself to put the final nail of Rokurou's death in her coffin, not so long as they believed in her.

When she was thinking clearly, anyway.

It took a few more minutes for them both to catch their breath, and Velvet withdrew her daemon arm. Even though there had been no outcome to the fight, just hurling her full power at the one who had torn her from a happy existence had made her feel somewhat better. When at last they stood, the sun was high in the sky.

"So," Rokurou finally managed, "you still hungry?"

"Always," Velvet growled.

"Come on, the nest isn't too far from here." And just like that, he started walking again, clearly expecting her to follow. It was as though nothing had happened.

"You…" Velvet shook her head, jogging to catch up with him. "We just tried to kill each other, and you're still determined to stick with me?"

"Sorey gave me an order, and I intend to follow it," Rokurou said. "Besides…" He looked over at her and, incredibly, grinned. "Our fights make it pretty clear that I was right: whatever it is I'm missing, you'll help me find it."

"I won't help you with anything," she spat.

"You already are," he told her. "I've never had to fight like this before."

"Which is pretty pathetic, considering I've spent the last fifteen hundred years imagining a happy life with my family," Velvet commented.

"Yeah, but you were also the Lord of Calamity," Rokurou pointed out. "Obviously, I should have been taking some of those on over the years. Unfortunately, some Shepherd always got to them first."

"Wh-? _Some_ of the Lords of Calamity?" Velvet repeated.

"Yeah, there have been quite a few since you sealed Innominat away," Rokurou explained. "And there's always a Shepherd who rises to take them down. I think you're the only Lord of Calamity to have ever been victorious over their Shepherd, actually."

"Well, since all the Shepherds wield the power of purification now, I guess that's not really a bad thing," Velvet thought out loud. "The only alternative is a world totally consumed by malevolence, and even I don't really want that."

"You're definitely not like any other Lord of Calamity has been," Rokurou said, as though he was agreeing with her about something. "Still, you earned the title for a reason. I'm honored to have faced you in battle."

"And ashamed that both of our bouts resulted in a draw," Velvet finished.

"Well…yes and no," he replied, surprising her; "if it wasn't a draw, one of us would be dead. And I can't afford for either of us to die. Actually, come to think of it…" He slowed his pace and stopped, turning to her with an unusually serious expression. "We can't fight anymore," he sighed heavily.

Velvet blinked. "That's the last thing I ever expected to hear you say," she remarked.

"Yeah, well, y'know…as much fun as it is, when I'm in the middle of battle, I forget…things," Rokurou explained. "You do too. I really can't afford that, so…we have to find some other way to coexist. If I kill you, I can't repay my debt, so I can't risk the chance that I might kill you."

"You say that like there's any chance you could win," Velvet sneered.

"I might," Rokurou shrugged. "I'd try, at least. And I can't afford that, on my honor. So…let's find some other way to live."

"Like what?" Velvet asked sarcastically.

"Eh, we'll think of something," was Rokurou's only answer, and he started walking again.

"Is this daemon nest close?" Velvet sighed, recognizing a conversation that wouldn't go anywhere.

"Yep, we're almost there. In fact, it should be right…_here_," Rokurou replied, rounding a large tree.

Half expecting to see nothing at all, Velvet walked up beside him, and to her surprise, found a depression in the earth, as though a giant hand had scooped out a clump of dirt a long time ago and grass had grown to cover the damage. In the middle of the depression was what looked like a large wasp nest, swarming with…

"Hornet daemons?" Velvet demanded, turning on her companion. "You expect me to eat _hornet daemons_?"

He shrugged, not quite apologetically. "I said it was the closest nest, not the tastiest," he said. "The next-closest one was half a day away."

"I really hate you," she growled as she awakened her daemon arm. Resisting the urge to consume him instead, she turned and began swiping up and absorbing hornet daemons by the massive handful, losing herself in the taste of blood and flesh, the heady rush of power she'd tasted a few times the previous day. _Beast daemons have a much more satisfying flavor, though,_ she thought as she sucked up the bugs. Not that she could ever be truly satisfied…

Rokurou said nothing until she had restrained her daemon arm again. "Had enough?" he asked her as she turned her back on the sorely-depleted nest.

"For now," she replied.

"Well, now that you've eaten, let's figure out what we're going to do," Rokurou stated, leaning against a nearby tree.

"And how exactly do you plan for us to go about that?" Velvet demanded. "Do you expect me to just follow you around on your wandering quest for strength?"

"No," Rokurou said slowly. "No, I don't…Besides, I've been around the world so many times, there's nothing left for me to see. Of course, I could show _you_ around, if you like, but something tells me you're not interested right now."

"It's not like I have anything better to do," she pointed out.

He blinked. "Oh. Well, then…do you want to do that? I can show you around Hyland, take you through the Rolance Empire, even the outlying regions across the Great Camelot Bridge…"

"How about you _tell_ me what there is to see, first?" Velvet snapped. "I don't know any of these things you're naming!"

"Well…the 'gands aren't separated by oceans anymore," Rokurou told her. "Northgand and Westgand merged into one landmass, as did Midgand and Eastgand - in fact, I think we're in what used to be Eastgand right now."

_That explains why this forest feels a little bit like home, at least,_ Velvet thought.

"Not sure what happened to Southgand…I think it might have sunk to the bottom of the ocean," Rokurou continued. "Anyway, these two landmasses did eventually merge as well, but a nearly-impassible mountain range stands between them; so, hundreds of years ago, people actually built a bridge between old Midgand and old Westgand, so all the landmasses can be traversed safely without any need for boats. Everything across the bridge is kind of wild, there aren't many settlements - oh, most of old Westgand is actually a desert now, if you can believe that, and then old Northgand is just as cold as ever right next to it. You kind of have to see it to believe it."

"I'll take your word for it," Velvet said, not really interested in revisiting the icy tundra of Northgand.

"On this side of the bridge, there are two nations: the Kingdom of Hyland and the Rolance Empire," Rokurou went on. "Technically, everything across the bridge is part of the Rolance Empire too, but it's not nearly as regulated over there. Between the two nations is Glaivend Basin, a sort of neutral zone where they've gone to fight with each other several times."

"So most of the land is under the Rolance Empire, then?" Velvet concluded.

"Pretty much," Rokurou confirmed. "Not sure why the Kingdom of Hyland even exists, to be honest. I haven't really been paying attention to the politics around either place, unless it involves war."

"They've gone to war?"

"Once or twice," Rokurou shrugged. "They've been at peace for the last five hundred years or so. The only impact it's had on me is that traveling between the two places is a lot easier now that no one really cares which nation you're from.

"Anyway, Ladylake is the only really interesting place in the Kingdom of Hyland, the rest is mostly just forests, grassy hills, and the occasional little town. Oh, and Rayfalke Spiritcrest, this really tall mountain in the west; I've found a good fight there once or twice. If it's people you're looking for, though, or culture, pretty much all of that is in the Rolance Empire."

"Well, I'm not," Velvet dismissed. "In fact, the fewer people around, the better."

"In that case, you probably want to stay in this area," Rokurou said. "Although…Do you remember Lothringen Tower?"

"Yeah…" Velvet said slowly, her eyes narrowed at him.

"Well, part of it is still standing," Rokurou told her, much to her surprise. "I mean, it's really just ruins now, but it's still recognizable. It's the site of the only town in old Westgand, actually. So if you want to see a place that's familiar…"

"Yes," Velvet gasped, hating the softness in her voice. "I want to see that. Please…"

"It's a long way from here," Rokurou warned her. "Well have to go through at least one densely-populated area to get there."

Velvet considered this. She really didn't want to go spreading malevolence through a bunch of cities, not even taking Rokurou's debt into account…but to see a place she knew, a place that was familiar besides the Empyrian's Throne, some proof that this really was the world she'd left behind… "We can go around the cities and towns," she said slowly. "It might take some work, but we could. Even if Lothringen _is_ a town now, before that, we don't really have to pass through civilization. Do we?"

"It's a lot more difficult," Rokurou said, "but if you really, _really_ want to avoid people…yeah, it's doable."

"Take me there," Velvet declared. "Show me the way, Rokurou. I want to see it."

"Alright then, that's a good start!" Rokurou remarked cheerfully, and he straightened up and turned to his right. "Follow me, I'll show you the way."

For the first time since being released, as she followed him, Velvet found herself not entirely wanting Rokurou dead. If he could show her something she knew, even if it was only the remains of a tower…well, she still wouldn't forgive him. But for now, it was a purpose, and she didn't have it without him. So she wouldn't _completely_ hate him.

For now.

~o~

By the time they reached Glaivend Basin, it was getting late, and the area itself was entirely barren and open, Velvet could already see.

"There's no way we can get across before nightfall," she stated.

"We just passed Marlind," Rokurou informed her, "basically the only other major settlement in the Kingdom of Hyland. We could go back and stay there for the night."

"What part of 'I'm too malevolent' do you not understand?" Velvet demanded.

"Honestly, Velvet, I don't think one night will do any real damage," he said firmly. "It's my honor on the line here, remember. I truly believe that a single night at an inn, and leaving in the morning, won't do any harm."

"You just want to buy a drink," Velvet grumbled.

"Well…" He gave a half-smile.

"Whatever," Velvet sighed. "If this ends up ruining your precious honor, I won't complain. It's on your head."

"I'm completely confident, one night won't cause an outbreak of daemonblight," Rokurou insisted.

"Fine! Lead the way," Velvet relented.

The gates to Marlind were surprisingly big and heavy for what turned out to be an incredibly rustic town on the other side. In some ways, it reminded Velvet of Aball, and she tried not to look around as Rokurou made a beeline for the inn. Still, the sounds of people going about their daily lives were impossible to shut out, and Velvet had to admit that her actions hadn't been the end of everything all that time ago. She hadn't wanted them to be…but in a weird way, she sort of wished they had. Then, at least, it would feel as though what she'd done had had some significance, that she hadn't rampaged across the entire continent only to be completely forgotten a few hundred years later.

_Even if they don't remember you, it's because of you that the power of purification now rules the land,_ she reminded herself. _The only alternative to malevolence would still be suppression, if not for you. No one has to remember it now for the world to be completely different as a result of all that pain. It's not the same world. It's not the same, because of you._

Somehow, Rokurou managed to pay for a meal for both of them and two separate rooms next to each other. When they sat down, she asked him, "Where did you get all that gald?"

"Sometimes, daemons I kill drop things," he replied. "Sure, there's a little malevolence in the junk, but no one notices."

"You sell malevolent objects so you can buy booze," Velvet groaned; it wasn't a question.

He only shrugged.

Sighing, Velvet turned her attention to the food he'd paid for, and then she remembered that, as a therion, she had no sense of taste, that only blood had any flavor for her. Hesitantly, wondering if it was still true, Velvet brought the food to her mouth.

Nothing.

"Velvet?"

"I can't taste it, Rokurou," she said softly. "Remember?"

"Still?"

"Still."

"Well…" He frowned, apparently thinking. "I'll eat it, if you're not going to," he offered at last.

Though there wasn't really anything else he could have done, Velvet rolled her eyes at him and forced herself to keep eating. Even if she couldn't taste it, it was still sustenance, after all, and she was never full.

Later, shut into her own room, Velvet sat down against a wall, hugging her knees. If she did what Maotelus asked, and somehow managed to open herself to the flames of purification, would she be able to enjoy food again? Real food, not just in her dreams?

Did she deserve to ever enjoy food again?

_No. No, of course I don't…_

An hour passed. Between her fight with Rokurou and the trek across Hyland, Velvet was exhausted, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to sleep. It wasn't the revelation about food that bothered her, or memories of her dream life, or either of the impossible requests the divine Empyrian had begged of her. No…something was just missing.

_I slept fine with Rokurou at my back last night,_ she thought angrily. _What's keeping me up now?_

There was just a sense of wrongness, of being adrift in a place where she didn't belong. Even if Lothringen still stood, this wasn't her world anymore, the one she knew and had grown up in. Walking across the land, and mulling it over now, it all fully sank in for her: nothing here was familiar - not the land, not the people, not the politics. There was no home for her here, nothing from a time she knew. Except…

Hating herself, Velvet got up and left her room, then turned to go the rest of the way down the hall to the room next to hers. For a moment, she considered knocking, then decided she didn't care and opened the door forcefully, half-expecting it to be locked. It wasn't.

Rokurou looked up from where he was laying his swords down, apparently not at all surprised to see her. "Oh, hey," he said. "I just finished my practice swings. What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep," Velvet admitted begrudgingly. "How about you?"

"I don't expect to have any problems," he replied nonchalantly, walking over to sit on his bed.

"Of course you don't." She sat down, her back against the door.

"What's wrong?" he asked, as if he cared.

_What's wrong? What _isn't_ wrong?_ "You said that…something is missing, for you," she said slowly, closing her eyes. "For me, it's the opposite. _I'm_ missing, from a place where I belong, stuck here without anything I know or any place I can go to."

"It's still the same world, mostly," he pointed out. "Sure, everything's changed, but it's still the same place."

"Easy for you to say," she scoffed. "You've actually watched everything change. For me, it might as well be a whole other planet. Even the language isn't quite the same."

"You're reading too much into it," he told her.

"No, _you_ aren't reading _enough_ into it," she replied angrily. "How can you always be so carefree? I'm a daemon too."

"That's just the kind of daemon I am," he shrugged. "Maybe therions are different."

Velvet growled, but knew there would be nothing to gain from arguing the point. They sat in silence for a minute, Rokurou on the bed, Velvet on the floor, neither wanting to leave or stay.

"Why wasn't your door locked?" she eventually asked.

"I didn't want to lock you out," he replied with a shrug.

"You knew I would be coming in?"

"No, but…it felt wrong not to leave you the option."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" Rokurou sighed, and Velvet felt a bit of satisfaction at the sound of exasperation in his voice. "Why do you have to make everything so complicated?"

"Right," she muttered, "Rokurou Rangetsu is a simple man for whom everything is simple. How could I forget?"

"Benefits of lacking human emotions," he smirked.

"Don't talk to me about _lack of emotions_," she grumbled.

"Well…it's just human emotions I'm missing," he said, almost thoughtfully. "I still have plenty of animal emotions. It's not like I'm under the influence of Innominat's domain."

"Don't talk to me about Innominat."

"Okay, what _can_ I talk to you about?" Rokurou asked.

"Nothing," she replied sullenly.

"So we'll just sit here in silence until we fall asleep?"

"Unless you have any better ideas." Regretting that she'd even come in, Velvet stood, only for Rokurou to also get to his feet, an odd smile on his face.

"I might have one," he said slyly.

Eyeing him, Velvet crossed her arms. "I'm listening," she said slowly.

He walked over to her, not saying another word.

Immediately, Velvet took a defensive position. "If you lay one finger on me, I swear I'll-!"

He shut her up, not with a finger, but with his lips, pressed against hers.

First, there was only pure shock, paralyzing and numbing. No one had ever dared to make a move like this on her, not even in her dream, and she didn't know how to respond.

Then, anger rose, hot and familiar, that he would _dare_ to make such a move after all he'd done, all he'd taken from her. He'd destroyed her peace, and now he wanted more from her? Furiously, she lifted her hands to push him away.

Before she could throw him across the room, however, a third feeling surfaced: _hunger_. She wasn't allowed to devour him, but he owed her everything, owed her his flesh, for ruining her existence with her family. If this was the only way she could take what she was owed…well then, she decided, she would.

The momentary satisfaction she got at feeling his surprise as she returned his kiss gave him about two seconds' reprieve before she bit down hard on his lower lip, sinking her teeth in until at last she tasted blood. His blood was delicious, almost better than she could ever remember food tasting. Alarmed now, he tried to pull away, but she grabbed his shoulders and drew him in closer. He hesitated a moment, then threw his arms around her.

From there, there was no thought, no reason, only action and sensation. They bit, clawed, tore at each other, mindlessly, viciously. There was nothing loving or tender in any of their raking touches, their kisses were savage bites - they were two monsters who wanted something from each other, nothing more. On both of their minds was only one objective: _take_. Take, and give as little as possible in return.

Clothes went flying, far from intact, and neither cared. Did they even touch the bed? They didn't know. It was a contest, a battle, a competition to see who could take the most and give the least; nothing else mattered. If they couldn't fight to the death, then this would be their war instead.

But as with both their fights with blades, this too ended in a draw.

They fell apart, panting, both on the edge of consciousness, feeling only bitterness that they hadn't won. Oh, the pleasure was there, but it didn't matter, that wasn't the point. Hazy though her thoughts were, Velvet could only be angry, angry that he hadn't just accepted that he owed her and had no right to anything for himself.

Such was her final thought before she fell asleep.


	9. Shaken By Anxiety

Morning dawned dark and gloomy, and Velvet awoke to the sound of rain on the window of Rokurou's room, her already-tattered clothes in pieces around her, her only covering the bandages on her arm. There was no confusion this time, her dream life had faded; remembering exactly why she was in this position took only a moment, and once she did, her anger was enough to rouse her.

Groaning, she rolled over and stood, glaring around for her enemy. Rokurou was still asleep, his tunic and pants in shreds all over the room. Satisfied that at least he would have a rougher time of leaving than she would, she set about gathering what remained of her things. She had pieced it all together once before from rags and whatever she could find; it shouldn't be too much trouble to do so again.

As she worked, she reviewed the night's events, processing it all slowly. In her dream world, she and Niko had been a couple for several years before deciding that they were happier being best friends, sisters rather than lovers…but that, she realized with a jolt, had never actually happened. Her only _real_ experience with intimacy had been the previous night, with a man. That in and of itself didn't bother her - a man's muscles, a woman's curves, both had always been equally appealing to her eyes in their own ways; what had her uneasy was the sheer savagery of the experience, savagery her various bite marks and bruises attested to, not to mention the state of her clothes. Sure, _her_ viciousness made sense - it stemmed from her seething hatred - but what about him? Were men naturally that brutal?

_Even in reality, Celica was intimate enough with Artorius to get pregnant, and she never had any injuries,_ she recalled as she pulled on her tattered shorts and started on her leggings. _At least, not that I knew of…but, even if she'd been hiding it, if they had been like me and Rokurou, it would have made enough noise that I would have noticed, surely. They slept right above my room. I would have thought _something_ was going on…_

She glanced over at Rokurou, and felt her lips quirk up into a smirk when she noticed that several of the gashes she'd left on his back were still oozing blood. _Maybe it's a daemon thing,_ she decided. _After all, he's a daemon too. I have no reason to think it would have been the same in my dream world if I'd gotten around to confessing my feelings for him there…_

Remembering why that hadn't happened ignited another surge of hatred in her chest, and it pushed her uncertainty aside. It didn't really matter; this wasn't love. Love wasn't something she would ever have…would ever be capable of…

Once her leggings were passable again and she moved to start repairs on her top, Rokurou finally woke.

"Took you long enough," she commented as he sat up.

"Good morning to you too," he said.

Velvet chose to ignore this, focusing instead on fixing her top, her thoughts and memories silenced. The buckle was intact, thankfully - she could repair cloth, but she was no blacksmith. As it was, several laces had to be retied with weaver's knots, and some of the fabric had to be stitched together. Nothing she couldn't handle.

"You're really good at that," Rokurou commented after a couple of minutes.

"I had to be," she responded. "Even when you're just a human hunting prickleboars, it's normal for clothes to get ripped. And after Celica died, I had to be the seamstress of the house - Arthur was never really good at anything domestic. Needles weren't easy to come by in Aball, either, so…I learned to improvise."

"So…you're not talking about your dream life, with Celica still alive?" Rokurou asked.

"No," Velvet answered, and nothing more.

"Uh-huh," he said after a moment. "Well, when you're done with yours, can you do mine?"

"You have no right to ask for any favors from me," Velvet spat, finishing the last touches on her top and getting to work on rebuckling her belts, which thankfully had withstood the assault. "You had no right to get anything out of last night in the first place. You're the one who owes me. Whatever happened to the Rangetsu code of honor or whatever?"

"Now, see, from where I'm sitting, it looks more like _you_ owe _me_," Rokurou said with a sly smile. "I'm the one who busted you out of an unending cycle of eating and being eaten by an Empyrian, whether you were living some dream fantasy in the meantime or not. Besides…" His smile twisted into a full smirk. "I never throw a fight."

_So he thought of it as a fight, too._ If she hadn't hated him so much, she might have given more thought to how they seemed to be on the same page so often. "Well, it didn't matter, since you didn't win," she scoffed.

"Neither did you," he pointed out, still smirking. "We really have to stop ending up at stalemates. Don't worry, I'll beat you at something someday."

"I wouldn't count on it," she said coldly, clasping on the last buckle. Only the remains of her jacket were left, but since that was always tattered anyway, it was hardly worth repairing the new rips, and she shrugged it on and stood.

"You gonna do mine now?"

"I said no."

"All right," Rokurou said, standing up completely naked, baring not only his flesh but all the scratches, bruises, and bite marks that covered him. "I don't mind walking out of here like this, if it doesn't bother you…"

She growled at him, but couldn't help feeling a little embarrassed despite herself. "Fine," she grumbled. "Let's see what's left."

Rokurou's new outfit was much simpler than the odd garments he'd worn back in the day, and were nothing Velvet couldn't patch up to be passable, though the damage was pretty extensive; she must have shredded it all with her therion claw and not noticed. Part of her was almost proud that she'd managed to not consume him with that same claw, though of course plenty of her wished she had. She worked in silence, though he watched her a little too intensely for her liking; when each piece was salvaged to the best of her ability, she tossed the clothes at him apathetically.

"So," he said eventually, pulling on his tunic, "are we still going to Lothingren Tower?"

"We have nothing else to do," Velvet replied. "Let's get out of here."

Still not looking at him, she stood and went to the door, only vaguely sensing that he followed. Though it had crossed her mind before, out in the hall, as she approached the front desk, it fully occurred to Velvet just how much noise she and Rokurou must have made. On top of that, she was suddenly self-conscious of the marks that her minimal clothing left exposed, making it clear who the culprit was…not to mention the bloodstains that someone was going to have to clean out of the wood floor…

Heat rising in her face, Velvet snagged Rokurou's entire pouch of gald and dropped it on the counter as she went to the door, her eyes focused ahead. Rokurou's steps faltered behind her, but she managed to go fast enough that he didn't have time to grab his money back. Outside, mercifully, it was still raining, and Velvet allowed herself one breath before she turned and made for the gate that led out of Marlind. At least people would be focused on staying dry and not looking too closely at anyone else walking around, if she was lucky.

When at last they were beyond the town gates and out of sight of any other people, Velvet finally stopped and turned on her unwanted companion. "We're not doing that in a town again," she told him. "Or a city. Or anywhere with other people."

"Wait, are we going to do it again at all?" he asked, his lips curving into yet another infuriating smile.

Velvet glowered at him. "You're the one who said we had to find some way to coexist without killing each other," she said, "and this is the only way I get to taste your blood without upsetting Maotelus." Briefly, she winced at the thought of Maotelus finding out what had happened at all, given that he was a child; then she remembered that he was actually over fifteen hundred years old, and almost certainly knew about such things…

"So…?"

"After you show me the tower, we're going back to old Eastgand," Velvet went on, regathering her thoughts. "That seems like it has the least amount of people, unless you know somewhere more remote."

"No, that forest is about as untouched as it gets," Rokurou told her.

"Then that's where we're going to stay."

"But we're still going to Lothringen Tower?"

"_Yes_," she hissed, "and then we're going right back to old Eastgand. And we're not stopping at _any_ inns, on the way there or on the way back."

"So…are we going to do that again or not?" Rokurou asked slowly.

"Not around people," was the only answer Velvet cared to give. "Not around people…" She couldn't tell him what was really bothering her, there would be no point, he wouldn't care. _Lust is a form of malevolence. The whole town could have caught daemonblight because of our carelessness…_my_ carelessness. Why did I let myself do any of that…?_

Shaking her head in frustration, Velvet started walking towards Glaivend Basin, trusting that Rokurou would follow.

"So not until we get back, then?" he pressed, keeping pace with her.

Stopping a moment, she finally glanced at him. "Are you…_eager_?" she asked, surprised.

He just shrugged as he took the lead.

"I wouldn't have expected that of you," Velvet commented, following him now. "Fighting is all you ever think about."

"But it _was_ a fight, sort of," he argued, "and one that wouldn't end in me ruining any chances of repaying my debt. It's a pretty tidy solution, really."

"Don't be proud of yourself," she spat, deciding not to argue the point of what she meant by 'fight', lest he make some smart remark about swords. "The only reason I would ever repeat last night is to taste your blood again."

"I'll take what I can get," was his response, a response Velvet found utterly baffling.

_He started it,_ she remembered. _Why would he start it?_ True, he had admitted to still having animal emotions, but it still seemed entirely unlike him, and more and more so the more she thought about it. _Not that I'm in a position to judge…_

Glaivend Basin was huge, and took several hours to cross; neither of them spoke the whole journey, apart from when they passed an old, abandoned village that looked as though it had been smashed by daemons - a spot, Velvet noted, that would have been much more appropriate for what they did last night. She asked Rokurou if there were other towns like this one, and he replied, "A few, but no others on the way to Lothringen."

Besides that, they made their way in silence, even when fighting the occasional daemon that popped up, until they left the wasteland behind and entered a cool forest with enormous trees.

"This is the border of the Rolance Empire," Rokurou informed Velvet. "Just through this forest is the town of Lastonbell."

"How do we get around it?" she asked.

"Not easily," he admitted, "but I think we can pull it off with some work. It'll probably take until after nightfall, though."

"We'll rest when we need to," Velvet decided. "The sooner we get past the town and away from people, the better."

"You really don't want to be around people, do you?" Rokurou remarked as he led the way through the woods.

Velvet didn't answer. There was no need.

Lastonbell, as it turned out, was much bigger than Marlind, and also made use of a wall to keep itself safe. To Velvet, this made circumnavigating it easier, though the thick forest and slippery slopes around either side certainly weren't easily traversed. As Rokurou predicted, night had fallen by the time they got to the other side and found themselves in open fields.

"What are these towers for?" Velvet asked, noting the leaning towers that dotted the landscape in the moonlight.

"Not sure," Rokurou replied, "but we can use them for shelter if you're tired."

"How much further to Lothringen?"

"Quite a ways; we're still nowhere close to the bridge to old Westgand."

Velvet wasn't sure what she had been expecting - they _were_ walking all the way from Eastgand to Westgand, after all - but she found herself frustrated all the same. "I can keep walking," she said. "Besides, I haven't had anything to eat since that walking tree we came across after Glaivend Basin."

Barely had she said this than a bird daemon of some sort swooped down at her. Without missing a beat, she grabbed it and ate it, leaving its fellows to be cut down by Rokurou in quick succession.

"And now?" he smirked at her.

"Fine," she sighed. "We'll stop under one of the towers and sleep back-to-back again. But we keep going at first light."

"Why are you so eager to see Lothringen?" Rokurou asked her as they headed for the nearest leaning tower.

"You wouldn't understand," she grumbled. In truth, she wasn't entirely sure why she was so eager to see it herself, but it felt like something she needed to do. Seeing the Empyrian's Throne was one thing, but it had only just been made when she sealed Innominat away, and presumably hadn't existed in her dream world at all. But Lothringen…

Sleep came surprisingly easy that night, all things considered, though Rokurou insisted on getting his practice swings in before settling down. Nothing attacked them while they slept, and when the sun rose, Velvet rose with it. Rokurou was still fast asleep, so she kicked him in the side to wake him.

"Let's go," she barked.

Grumbling, he got up, adjusted his swords, and started walking. Velvet followed.

After a few hours, golden fields came into view, too square to be natural. "That's where most of the grain on the continent comes from," Rokurou told Velvet. "To the south there," he gestured at some distant stone towers, "is Pendrago, the capital of the Rolance Empire. We don't have to go near it to reach the Great Camelot Bridge, though, so don't worry."

"Are there any settlements between here and Lothringen?" Velvet questioned.

"I mean, there's a little marketplace in the middle of the bridge, but besides that, no," Rokurou replied.

"Good," Velvet sighed. No need to worry about spreading malevolence, at least until they got there…

Nothing else was said as Velvet followed Rokurou across the seemingly endless fields of wheat. A few daemons showed up along the way, but none put up any kind of fight, which Velvet sensed frustrated Rokurou. _The enemies around here really are all pushovers,_ she thought. _No wonder he wasn't strong enough to beat me when he broke me out of Innominat's grasp._

After what felt like ages, the fields finally gave way to some hills. Rokurou led Velvet through a couple of small valleys, and they came out at a massive stone archway.

"Here we are," he told her; "the Great Camelot Bridge. The only other way to old Westgand is through a huge mountain range, and not only is that area inhospitable, it would actually take us further away from Lothringen."

"It's impressive that humans managed to build a bridge across an entire sea," Velvet admitted, leaning against one of the pillars that were bigger than a house and catching her breath.

"The sun's setting," Rokurou commented. "You want to stop for the night?"

"No, I have a couple of hours left in me," Velvet answered. "Let's get as far as we can."

And that was all. It was as though they couldn't talk about anything on this journey, some unspoken agreement that anything important could wait until after Velvet had seen the remains of Lothringen.

As it turned out, the bridge was impossible to cross before nightfall - it really did span an entire sea. Still, they managed to get past the marketplace Rokurou had mentioned at the halfway point, and huddled in a corner off on a side path of the bridge to rest when it got too dark. There were a surprising number of daemons here for a man-made structure, but neither of them commented on it. Rest wasn't as easy this time, but they managed to get a few hours' worth before the sun rose; then, Velvet insisted that they keep going.

Across the bridge at last, Velvet was shocked to discover a hot, dry desert. "What is this?" she gasped.

"This is old Westgand," Rokurou replied.

"But it's so…_hot_," she protested. "Westgand was always all wet and marshy…"

"Yeah, I don't know what that's about," he shrugged. "There _is_ a swamp a little to the south of here, but to get to Lothringen, we have to go northwest. Once we cross the moor, we'll be there."

"We're really almost there?" she asked softly. Something stirred in her chest, but she couldn't tell whether it was hope or fear.

"Yup!" he responded cheerfully. "Of course, crossing Zaphgott Moor is never easy, and it's a lot bigger than Glaivend Basin, but once we cross it, we'll be there. It shouldn't be hard to arrive before nightfall."

"Before nightfall…" Velvet repeated under her breath. Less than a day, and she would see…something…

They carried on, Rokurou leading the way through the sandy wasteland that Velvet would quickly have gotten lost in without him - there seemed to be nothing but sand, rocks, and the occasional cactus in every direction. Daemons were here too, some surprisingly big ones, but only a couple; Velvet had the unique experience of consuming an entire mammoth daemon through her therion claw.

And then, some stairs, leading to a door.

~o~

"Is this…?"

"This is it," Rokurou confirmed, catching his breath after Velvet's relentless pushing - even when she wasn't speaking, he knew she was silently urging him to go faster. "The remains of Lothringen Tower. I haven't been here in a while, but-"

Suddenly, Velvet rushed past him, almost hurling herself at the doors.

"Velvet?"

She didn't respond, but what little he managed to glimpse of her face reminded him of when the subject of Artorius used to come up back in the day. Unsure what else to do, he obeyed the orders Sorey had given him, and followed her.

Inside, Rokurou felt a momentary flicker of familiarity, the same as the last time he'd been here a few centuries ago. The shallow water pools were gone, tents were set up everywhere in a sort of makeshift town, and most of the inner walls were crumbled, but it was still very recognizably Lothringen Tower. Velvet clearly thought so too, her head whipping this way and that, her golden eyes wide.

"This is…" she breathed. "It's…all dry now, but…"

Before Rokurou could say anything, she dashed off to the right, and he ran after her. _Keep an eye on Velvet._ Those were his orders, and that was what he would do.

"This door," she murmured as she came to a door around the bend. "It doesn't…go anywhere…" She flung it open and dashed through, only to come up short at a wall of rubble. "Yes, and those are the stairs, that you access by…" Barely had Rokurou caught up to her than she whirled around and made a mad sprint for the other end of the tower. Whatever was going on with her, Rokurou could only chase after her as she ran like a madwoman, causing the locals to stare at her, though it was clear she didn't notice.

At the other door, she opened it even more forcefully, and gasped at the sight of stairs leading upward, exactly as they had so long ago, worn and crumbling though they now were. Her hesitation gave Rokurou a chance to catch up, and then she was off again, pelting up the stairs with single-minded intensity.

"Velvet!" he called after her, still giving chase.

On the landing, she turned to the doors to her left. "This room is…" she muttered, pushing the doors open, though she seemed more subdued now. "Nothing," she murmured. "The same, but…the tables are gone…and over here…" She turned around, but only seemed to be able to manage a slow walk, much to Rokurou's relief. He watched her as she approached the doors to the inner room, where Melchior had once caught them in a trap of illusions, and opened them. What had once been rough tile had been replaced by flower beds, and the center of the room now contained a monolith, but somehow, it was still the most recognizable place in the ruins.

Slowly, as though in a trance, Velvet stepped forward, until she stood among the flowers and the memories. Uncertainly, Rokurou followed her.

"Velvet?" he asked. "Are you…okay?"

In response, she dropped to her hands and knees.

"It's all real," she whispered. "This really is…the same world I left behind…hundreds of years later…This isn't the dream…"

Rokurou blinked. "You…had doubts?" he asked her, surprised.

Her head turned to look up at him, and he was startled to see her golden eyes glistening with tears. "Why did it have to be _you_?" she sobbed. "Why couldn't it be…someone who would _understand_…?"

Velvet's head drooped back down, and Rokurou again felt something in his chest skip a beat as he failed to feel what he knew he should feel right now. It wasn't just one skip, though; it happened again, and again, as though he was really trying to be whatever it was Velvet needed him to be in this moment. _Thunk…thunk…thunk…_ The sensation jarred his ribcage, as though a lever was trying to catch at some gears to turn, but the gears just didn't exist, though it kept trying.

But the gears would never exist. He was a daemon. He couldn't feel anything, couldn't be what Velvet needed. There was only one thing he could do.

"I…I'm sorry," he managed. "I'll…leave you alone."

Turning his back on the woman crying on the floor, he forced his way out of the room and around the bend, where he pressed his back against the stone wall and tried to regain his focus. _Thunk…thunk…thunk,_ went the faulty mechanism of his soul in time with his heartbeat. It was a wonder he could breathe through it.

_Human emotions are not what I am missing!_ he told himself firmly. _They wouldn't make me stronger, they would only get in my way in a fight! Whatever I'm missing, it's not this!_

And yet the mechanism kept trying and failing to catch. _Thunk…thunk…thunk…_

_Someday,_ he reminded himself. _Someday, I have to let myself be purified, so I can repay my debt to Sorey. But not until I figure out how to get stronger. I'll get my emotions back after I achieve my dream. In the meantime, they wouldn't help me. If I'm ever going to be strong, it's going to be while I still lack them._

He kept telling himself this, trying to regain his absolute focus and self-control, but the throbbing emptiness was slow to ease.

_Thunk…thunk…thunk…_


	10. During a Noisy Night

**TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains violence and bloodshed in a sexual context. This is the worst it's going to get in this whole story, so be warned; if you can push through the intense stuff, there IS important world-building and character development here, so I can't recommend you skip it, but just…be warned.**

**Also, the author's note at the top of chapter 6 has been updated and chapter 5 has been slightly tweaked. Nothing of significance has changed, however.**

* * *

By the time Velvet's tears ran dry and she picked herself up off the floor, night had fallen, the only illumination coming from the moon visible through the missing roof. Pulling her facade back into place, she turned away from the flowerbeds and walked out to the staircase, where she found Rokurou standing with his back against the wall, his face oddly tense; if she didn't know him, she would have thought he was in the midst of his own internal struggle. Still, he roused as she walked past him, standing up and focusing his one eye on her.

"Velvet," he greeted. "Are you…uh…feeling better?"

"Don't act like you care," Velvet huffed.

To her surprise, he winced ever-so-slightly, as though this actually bothered him.

She sighed. "Thank you for giving me space," she relented. "I'm fine. Let's just get out of here."

"So…you've done everything you needed to do?" he questioned.

"I've seen what I needed to see," Velvet replied. "There's nothing else here. Let's go."

"Alright," he said slowly. "Do you…mind if I do a little shopping before we go? I should probably get some clothes that aren't hanging on by a few threads, and I'll have to sell some things too since you left all my gald at the inn in Marlind…"

Velvet couldn't help but cringe at the reminder of that night in Marlind. _That was real, too. That really happened. I did that…_ "Sure," she sighed. "But I'm going to wait outside. Take your time, I guess."

Not waiting for an answer, she stalked down the ancient stairs and made for the exit as quickly as she could. Despair was another form of malevolence, and she knew she couldn't contain it.

Out in the desert, sand below and stars above, Velvet sighed. At least it was a peaceful place to gather her thoughts. Until she'd seen the remains of Lothringen Tower, she hadn't fully realized how much she doubted that any of this really was the world she'd left behind, that any of it was real at all. For all she had known, this was the dream, and any minute she'd wake up in her bed in Aball and get up to go fishing in Tranquil Woods with her family. But now, seeing a place she had once been, all ruined and decrepit with ages gone by but still clearly recognizable…there was no denying that it was all real. Everything she had done as the Lord of Calamity, all of it was real, and this was the world that had risen from the ashes of the civilization she had burned. A better world? Maybe, considering that the Silver Flame ruled the land now. But…the same world. The world she had almost destroyed. None of the happy life she'd been experiencing ever happened.

Where did that leave her?

Eventually, Rokurou joined her, though she didn't pay enough attention to notice that his clothes were fresh and intact. Instead, she had her eyes on the moon. Did scarlet nights still happen, she found herself wondering? When was the last one? When would the next one be?

"Velvet?" Rokurou prompted. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

"Mind if I ask what you're thinking about?"

Suddenly, Velvet wanted nothing more than to hear his stupid, oblivious, optimistic nonsense in response to grimness and despair. "Part of me didn't want to believe that any of this was real," she told him. "Part of me hoped that this really was just a dream, and soon I'd wake up back in my happy life with my family. But I won't."

"No," he said slowly. "No, you won't. This is definitely real."

"Everything I did…it all happened so long ago," she went on. "Hundreds and hundreds of years. But even still…I would have expected there to be some lasting impact. I terrorized the whole world, destroyed towns and overthrew an entire government; everyone on the continent knew and feared my existence. And now…now no one remembers me. No one remembers anything I did."

"Prince Percival _did_ say he was going to strike any mention of both you and Artorius from any historical records," Rokurou pointed out. "The king himself _wanted_ you to be forgotten, and that's probably for the best."

"But you can't just erase an entire catastrophe!" Velvet cried. "All the horrible, selfish things I did…everything I sacrificed for my own ends, everything I destroyed-!"

"You didn't destroy _that_ much," Rokurou argued, just as oblivious as she had expected. "Sure, you terrorized a couple of towns in Northgand…and corrupted that one village in Southgand…and yeah, you took out the praetors of the Abbey, but…Look, after you sealed Innominat away, Eleanor took over what was left of the Abbey and helped everyone rebuild - including all the people who were turned back into humans when Laphicet became the Empyrian Maotelus."

"How _did_ he become the new Empyrian?" Velvet asked, realizing she hadn't given this any thought. "And what about everyone else, what did they do? Eleanor took over the Abbey…?"

"As soon as you sealed Innominat away, the other Empyrians came and told us that without a fifth Empyrian to maintain the balance between them, they would tear the world apart," Rokurou explained. "Phi stepped forward and offered to be the new Empyrian, so he could give the Silver Flame to the world. They agreed and granted him that power. Almost everyone was purified when he rose as the Dragon of Light, even the other therions."

"But you weren't."

"No…He said that the Silver Flame can't change what's in people's hearts, it just gives them a second chance," Rokurou said. "But he also said it was okay, that this is just who I am."

Despite herself, Velvet chuckled. "That sounds like Phi, all right."

"Yeah…" Rokurou sighed, then continued, "We all split up after that. Maotelus had to tend to his Empyrian duties, you were gone, I went looking for new opponents to fight…Eizen returned to the Van Eltia, even though the crew couldn't see him with Innominat gone. I'm not sure what happened to Magilou, I didn't see her after we went our separate ways…which is kind of odd, come to think of it, because I went everywhere in search of a worthy adversary. I guess she must have tried really hard to stay unseen, whatever she was doing. And Eleanor…" He shrugged. "Artorius and the other praetors were dead - and good riddance - and since she trained under Artorius, she was the one everyone turned to to rebuild the Abbey. I met up with her a few years later, and it sounded like the handful of people left with resonance were putting the Silver Flame to good use."

"You met up with her," Velvet repeated. "Did you stay close?"

"Not really, I just took her out for yozakara anmitsu, like I promised I would do after I killed Shigure." He chuckled. "She tried to put on a good face, but I could tell, she hated it. That was the only other time I saw her."

Closing her eyes, Velvet mulled this over. The fact remained that the cure for daemonblight would never have been found if not for what she did, but… "You said the therions were purified?" she asked.

"Yeah, they all went back to normal," Rokurou answered. "I saw Medissa and Kamoana briefly, just enough to know that they were human again, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't the same for Orthie and Russ, Grawky, and the beetle."

"I…" Velvet folded her arms, remembering everything she was willing to destroy for her own selfish purposes. "I went in knowing that if we killed Innominat, everyone tied to him would die. Not just me, but Kamoana and Medissa…and Phi…all because I'm just a selfish, horrible-"

"But you _didn't_ kill Innominat," Rokurou pointed out. "You chose to sacrifice yourself to seal him away instead. It was a pretty heroic thing to do, in the end."

"I'm no hero," Velvet grumbled.

"I wouldn't call you selfish, either," Rokurou insisted. "A selfish person wouldn't give her life and death to save a few unfortunate souls. You didn't even do it so that the world would have the Silver Flame, you had no idea that that would happen; you just did it for the few people you knew would die if you destroyed Innominat. That's not selfishness."

"Well, that's a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one," Velvet muttered. "Reminding me that the only real consequence that came of what I did wasn't even something I intended to happen, but still finding a way to make it sound like I'm not a monster…"

"You're not a monster," Rokurou said firmly. "I've heard about some of the other Lords of Calamity throughout the ages and what they've done; they're nothing like you."

"Why are you trying to comfort me?" Velvet demanded.

Rokurou blinked. "I'm not," he replied. "I'm just telling it like it is."

Of course he was. But that just made it even more confusing…

They stood in silence for a minute.

"Let's get going," Velvet said at last, turning her back on Lothringen. "Old Eastgand is the best place for someone like me, far from where I can cause any more chaos."

"Alright," Rokurou said as they started walking back through Zaphgott Moor, Velvet in the lead. "What will we do once we're there?"

"We have about three days to figure that out," Velvet replied.

"So we can talk?" he asked. "We're not going to just walk in silence the whole way, like we did on the trip over?"

"No," Velvet answered sullenly. "No, there's no point in being silent anymore. We have to figure out what we're going to do."

"I'm not sure what you thought we'd find at Lothringen that would make any future plans pointless," Rokurou commented.

"Neither do I," Velvet admitted. "Maybe I thought I'd wake up before we got there, or that we would just never reach it…or maybe I thought that when we arrived, it would be exactly as I remembered it, not old and crumbled, so I would know it wasn't real. I don't know." Her scowl deepened. "The point is, I had _hope_. I wanted to believe in a world where hope isn't a waste. It was foolish of me."

"Well, hope isn't a waste in this world, now that daemonblight is curable," Rokurou reasoned, missing her point entirely.

"Oh?" she countered. "And are you going to get to work on curing your own malevolence, like Sorey told you to?"

"Not yet," he replied, and she could actually hear his smile waning. "I have to someday, in repayment of my debt, but before that, I have to find what I'm missing that will make me stronger than Shigure. I can't die or be purified until I accomplish my goal."

"And it really hasn't occurred to you that that goal might not be reachable for a daemon?" Velvet taunted.

"I don't see how that could be," Rokurou replied, and was that a hint of frustration she detected in his voice? "Human emotions would only get in my way in battle; they'd be reasons to hesitate, nothing more."

"Huh?" Velvet asked, genuinely confused. "I didn't say anything about human emotions."

Silence met this statement, save for the crunching of their boots in the sand.

"What I meant was, Shigure achieved incredible power while being pure enough to be an exorcist," Velvet went on eventually. "If you're so convinced that you're missing something, maybe you should think a little harder about exactly what he had that you didn't."

"And what do _you_ think that is?" Rokurou demanded.

"Beats me," Velvet shrugged. "But it can't be training or technique, not if you've been working at both for centuries." She snapped up an approaching scorpion daemon before she continued, "Maybe it has something to do with him wanting to get out of the Rangetsu clan's obsession with killing and dying."

"What do you mean, obsession?" he asked in a low voice.

"Well, it's pretty obvious that all you Rangetsus are raised to think with your swords," Velvet said. "I know it's not just you being a daemon, I've seen Shigure and even the reincarnation of your mother; you all just want to get strong enough to kill each other. Frankly, I'm surprised you weren't _all_ daemons."

"You don't know anything about my family, Velvet."

There was anger in his voice, and it encouraged Velvet to keep talking. "I know your mother defended you from assassins as a baby because she thought you had the potential to grow up to be stronger than her," she said. "I know all of you were given names based solely on your position in the clan. I know that the clan leader is the one who kills the previous leader, and that you all aspire to do that. I know that your life's ambition was to kill your own brother just because he was stronger than you. It's disgusting."

"Velvet, _stop_."

"Shigure was the only one who realized how horrible your family's creed was," Velvet continued, delighted that she'd managed to find a weakness in the normally-composed daemon swordsman. "He was also a lot stronger than you; I doubt that's a coincidence. Although, he did seem to be just as sword-brained as you, so maybe I'm giving him too much credit."

"_Velvet_."

"I mean, really now, the fact that you were willing to spread vicious lies about your own brother just so you'd have an excuse to kill him says it all, as far as I'm concerned," Velvet pressed on, barely containing her smirk. "It's clear that no member of your family ever knew anything about love or familial bonds-"

The sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath was just enough warning for Velvet to turn on her heel and catch Stormquell in her therion claw as it was swung at her at full strength. When Rokurou drew a dagger from behind his back with his free hand, Velvet released her gauntlet blade and blocked that too. They held the position for a long minute, Rokurou panting heavily, as though he'd just run ten miles. Malevolence rolled off his body like heat waves, no longer contained, and Velvet smiled, pleased with herself for shattering his precious self-control.

"Tell me I'm wrong," she challenged after a minute. "Tell me that your family weren't just rivals to you. Tell me you were even a little sad when any of your other older brothers died. Tell me Shigure didn't want to get out of your family's pact because he was sick of your obsession with living to do nothing but kill and die."

Rokurou roared at her like a wild animal, but she didn't flinch. "Why are you trying to make me kill you?!" he demanded.

"I'm not," she replied smartly; "I'm just telling it like it is."

"Grrr…!" Rokurou squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, then pushed off and took a few steps back, sheathing his weapons. Velvet held her defensive stance as he took several deep breaths, shifting his weight to a more relaxed pose. Slowly, much to her disappointment, the malevolence stopped pouring off of him, locked once more into his absolute focus and discipline.

But it had been there. She'd seen him snap.

"Velvet," he said at last, opening his eyes, the copper depths of his one human eye now a deadly calm in the bright moonlight, "I am forbidden to kill you. But I cannot let such insults to my family go unpunished." From behind his back, he drew his two short swords, which Velvet now noticed were actually the Kurogane Daggers, forged by the daemon Kurogane from his own head for Rokurou to use.

"I'm confused," she said calmly; "are you going to kill me or not?" Even the fact that part of her hoped he would didn't scare her.

"I can't," he repeated. "But I can hurt you, and I will. As the last living member of the Rangetsu Clan, I must spill your blood by sunrise, on my family's honor. Sorry, Velvet."

"Oh really?" Velvet smirked, brandishing her still-exposed therion claw. "Then I hope you don't mind if I take some of your blood for myself, too. Or did you think I would just stand here and let you cut me up for telling the truth?"

"We can't fight," Rokurou stated, though she could tell from the set of his jaw that he was tempted by the promise of a battle he wasn't guaranteed to win. "I won't kill you, Velvet, you know that, not unless I get carried away in the heat of battle."

"You think I'm afraid to die?"

"Heh…No, of course not," he conceded. "But I'm not allowed to kill you. If I took your life, I would have to take mine too, for forever tarnishing my family's honor."

"So you can tarnish your family's honor by trying to defend your family's honor," Velvet taunted. "Do you really not realize how unreasonable that is?"

"_Velvet_-!" He curled in on himself, eyes squeezed shut, clearly fighting back another wave of anger.

Velvet smiled. "I'm not going to let you hurt me," she told him; "I don't care about your stupid honor, so why should I? If you want my blood, I'll take yours too. It certainly tastes better than the scorpion daemons running around here."

"In that case…" To Velvet's surprise, Rokurou straightened up and put away his short swords. "Follow me," he said gruffly, and he started walking at an increased pace.

Confused, Velvet decided to follow him. At first, she thought he was setting the whole thing aside, but then he abruptly turned west, away from the Great Camelot Bridge. The handful of daemons they passed were aggressively cut down by Rokurou's blades before Velvet could even get a good look at them, and she knew he was still seething with rage. Something about being able to anger him so thoroughly made her proud of herself.

After walking a short ways, Velvet saw what Rokurou was leading her to: the rotting remains of a wood wall marked the ruins of an old village tucked away between massive rock formations, just like the one in the Glaivend Basin. Remembering her comment upon seeing that other old village, Velvet understood exactly where this was going.

_"__A tidy solution," he called it,_ she mused. _Fair enough. He probably feels the same way about this honor business as I did about the encounter in Marlind anyway. This will make us even, even if he does win. Which he won't._

Inside the crumbling remains of a place where humans once lived, his back to her, Rokurou pulled the straps of his greatswords over his head and set them aside, then took off his new tunic, as though he was preparing for his nightly training. Watching as he drew the Kurogane Daggers again, Velvet shed her own tattered jacket and gauntlet blade, summoning her therion claw once more.

"I assume this is going to be a rematch of our night in Marlind," she said coolly, just to be sure.

"That, or you could just let me enact retribution on behalf of my family," Rokurou smirked, turning on her.

"I wouldn't turn down a chance to taste your blood again."

"Fine. But this time, I'll taste yours, too."

Brandishing his short swords, Rokurou approached her, slowly, deliberately, as though afraid he might lose control again at any moment. Velvet's lips twisted in a cruel smile, and she brought her normal hand up to the buckle and clasp on her top and released them, letting the ragged garment fall to her waist, catching on her daemon arm and the belt at her waist that half of it was tucked into. When he still didn't quite snap, she growled in frustration and withdrew her claw to unbuckle her belt and toss both it and her top aside before extending her talons again, hating Rokurou and his damned self-control that reminded her of Artorius.

Still, his one good eye was entirely focused on her face, deliberately not eyeing the rest of her, as he came within blade range and swung. Fed up, Velvet grabbed both his wrists, pushing the weapons back, and kicked her steel-toed boot into his shin as hard as she could. He went down, but as he fell, he dragged one blade down the back of her thigh, cutting deep. Blood spilled, but Velvet reached over his exposed back and slashed her talons across the injuries she'd left there nights ago that still hadn't quite healed despite the gels Rokurou had eaten on the way to Lothringen. Though she was careful not to consume him, the taste of his blood on her hand's teeth was intoxicating. Standing up and throwing her claw aside, Rokurou slashed a knife across her chest, then grabbed her and bit into the wound as both knives dug into the backs of her shoulders. Velvet's vision dyed red, and all conscious thought was lost.

When it returned, they were both bloody, panting, collapsed against separate ruined houses, knowing only one thing: neither of them had won.

_Another draw._

~o~

Velvet woke to the first wan rays of sunlight and the sound of metal scraping against metal. Her wounds were sore, but as a daemon, it was nothing she couldn't handle. Rousing herself, she set about gathering her clothes. Nothing needed repairing this time, fortunately, aside from a few shreds of her leggings, and the red and black handled bloodstains well; clothed once more, she could set the previous night's events aside.

Around a few ruined houses, Rokurou was sitting on a rock, fully dressed and sharpening his Kurogane Daggers. His clothes were thicker, but she could still see blood seeping through from his back, and the sight brought a smile to her lips. Unsure where their relationship stood, such as it was, Velvet leaned against a crumbling wall and watched him for a while.

"You still have those," she commented at last. "You kept them, even though you have Stormhowl and Stormquell."

"Short swords are my specialty," Rokurou responded, not looking at her, "and Kurogane made these just for me. They're almost as valuable to me as my greatswords, even if I don't use them very often."

Silence fell again, save for the rasp of metal on metal. Velvet was just about to walk away and head for old Eastgand on her own when Rokurou finally spoke up of his own accord.

"Velvet."

"Yes?" she asked, turning back to him.

"Those things you said last night," he said slowly. "You only said them so I would hate you as much as you hate me…right?"

"Well, that's why I didn't stop when you told me to," she shrugged.

He sighed heavily. "I know how you felt about your family," he told her, "and by comparison, my family's ways must seem…alien. Barbaric, even. But that's not the case. We just…had different priorities from most people."

"Different priorities?" Velvet repeated incredulously.

"None of us were expected to live very long," Rokurou said, his back still to her. "To preserve our own life would be an insult to our family's code of honor. A few of us managed to live to a ripe old age, but only those who aged gracefully enough to continue wielding a blade. Living a long time wasn't what any of us wanted - not for ourselves, and not for other members of our family. Instead, what we all aspired to most was an honorable death…and no death could be more honorable than being overpowered by one of our own."

"Are you trying to tell me that your drive to kill each other was some sort of show of affection?" Velvet spat.

"In a way, it was," Rokurou replied. "To know that we'd passed on our ways to the next generation effectively enough that they surpassed their elders…it meant that the one who fell was the best possible teacher. It was the ultimate mark of respect, the highest honor any of us could ever attain. And while it's true that I hated Shigure by the time I killed him, it wasn't because of our rivalry - when it was just rivalry, we loved each other, in our way. I hated him because he chose to leave our clan rather than kill me."

"I still say that's incredibly messed up," Velvet muttered.

"Again, I can see why you would think that," Rokurou sighed. "But fighting wasn't all we ever did, either. Fighting for our benefactor was our duty, but we were still a family. We ate together, laughed together, defended each other…even gave each other gifts, sometimes, though that was rare. We loved each other, and the knowledge that we would all die, most of us at each other's hands, didn't tarnish that. It was our way. Even in killing, even in dying, we loved each other."

Though it still seemed demented to Velvet, somehow, she felt as though she understood it all a bit better. _Take out the desire to live a long life, and make a happy life defined as one in which you taught your children to fight even better than you, and…it makes a twisted sort of sense,_ she admitted to herself. _Horrific sense, but…_

She walked over beside Rokurou and sat down, not looking at him, any more than he looked at her. "You know," she said, "you could have just told me all this last night."

"It wouldn't have mattered," he stated. "You called my family disgusting, horrible, and sword-brained. Even if I explained why you were wrong and you took it all back, I couldn't let such insults just stand. I'm the last Rangetsu. It falls to me to uphold my family's honor."

He'd said as much before, but this time, Velvet fully understood what he meant. _Being the last living Rangetsu is a burden to him,_ she realized._ It's all on his shoulders to make sure everything his family ever stood for is upheld, that he doesn't tarnish everything 'Rangetsu' means. He probably feels like all of his ancestors are constantly looking down on him, judging his every move, measuring how well he's carrying on the name. Even one misstep would bring it all crashing down in his eyes…_

_Idiot. Why doesn't he just let it go?_

"I'm not going to take it all back, or apologize," she told him, "but…I'll admit that maybe I shouldn't have judged you for having a different life from mine." She hesitated, then added, "I should have guessed from the fact that your clan lasted as long as it did that there was more to it than wanting to kill each other."

"It is true that our clan self-destructed in the end," Rokurou conceded. "But that was as much Shigure's doing as ours."

"The family you served was the one who destroyed you all," Velvet reminded him.

"Yes, but that wouldn't have happened if Shigure hadn't walked out on us…and maybe, if I hadn't become so obsessed with overpowering him, he might not have," Rokurou said softly.

_He feels like it's his fault that his clan died out, _came the second realization. _He _can't_ let his family's name be tarnished, because he believes there would be others left to carry on their legacy if not for him. That's why he can't let this burden go, no matter what it might cost him or how long he lives._ "Shigure said he wanted to get out anyway," she pointed out, keeping her tone cold so he wouldn't think she was pitying him. "You just gave him an excuse. He would have found another one sooner or later."

"I guess," he sighed, though he sounded like he didn't believe it.

Saying anything more would accomplish nothing, so Velvet sat with him in silence as he continued tending his weapons. And somehow, even though she still hated him with all her heart for dragging her into a world where she didn't belong, and even though she still saw him as an idiot who thought with his swords…despite all of it, for just that moment in time, sitting there with him on a desert morning as he cared for his weapons before they set out on a journey across the continent together…somehow…it felt like home.


	11. The Things We Can't See

Once Rokurou was satisfied with the condition of all his swords, they left the remains of the long-destroyed village and set out for old Eastgand. They didn't speak to each other as they travelled, but it was a different sort of tension that kept them silent this time.

Two days passed, and nothing was said, except when they stopped for the night or Rokurou had to eat food. Velvet paid attention to her surroundings this time, taking in all that the world had become. When they passed Pendrago, she felt an odd urge to actually see it, but she resisted. Getting around Lastonbell started out much harder, the slippery stone slopes around the southern edge of the town almost impossible to navigate, but once they got past the first hurdle, it became much easier than coming the other way had been.

Then, when they were making their way through the forest of massive trees that stood between Lastonbell and the Glaivend Basin, Rokurou stopped at the base of a trunk and looked up, his expression thoughtful. Velvet tried to keep walking, but when he didn't follow, she relented and doubled back.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him.

"Just that…if we're going to be staying in old Eastgand, it would be nice to have a home, you know?" he replied.

"I…don't follow."

"Well, I haven't had a home because I've tried to keep moving," he reasoned. "If we're going to stay put, a base of some sort would be nice. I could stock my drinks there, and it would be nice to have a roof over our heads when it rains."

"And?"

"If we're going to have a home, a treehouse would be perfect, don't you think?" he concluded, turning to her with a grin.

"A treehouse?" Velvet repeated faintly.

"Yeah!" he said eagerly. "Think about it - people don't normally look up, and neither do animals, so as long as we made the way up hidden, no one would ever find us besides birds. And if someone came after us for being daemons, not only would we be hard to find, we'd also have the high ground if it came to a fight."

"I guess it makes as much sense as anything else," Velvet conceded. "So where do we find a treehouse?"

"Oh, there isn't anything like that in old Eastgand," Rokurou brushed off. "We'd build it ourselves."

Several possible responses leapt to the tip of Velvet's tongue at once, and she sorted through them carefully before replying, her hand clasped to her forehead. "Rokurou," she groaned at last, "neither of us knows anything about building houses!"

"Oh, come on, how hard could it be?" he asked. "A floor, four walls, a roof, a door, maybe a window or two…nothing to it! I bet I could build it myself."

"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard you come up with," Velvet stated bluntly.

"And I suppose you have a better one?" Rokurou countered.

"We've seen several ruined villages," Velvet said readily; "if anyone has ever holed up in old Eastgand, they probably didn't live very long. There's bound to be the remains of some old house or other in there somewhere. We could take it for ourselves."

"Can't say I recall seeing anything like that, but I haven't really looked in the last five hundred years or so," Rokurou mused. "Still, I think a treehouse would be better."

"I'm not helping you build a treehouse," Velvet told him. "If you want to waste your time trying to build something like that, you're on your own."

"Fine, I'll do it myself," Rokurou smirked.

Clearly, words were useless here. Velvet shook her head and turned back towards Glaivend Basin. "Let's just keep walking," she grumbled.

~o~

A day later, they were back in old Eastgand. Excited about his new project, Rokurou started hunting through the remote forest, looking for the perfect tree to serve as his base. Mercifully, Velvet tagged along, presumably because she had nothing else to do; he didn't miss her looking around for some sign of an old house, but he felt confident she'd come around.

It took yet another day of wandering through the woods, but then a small clearing appeared before a massive tree. Rokurou stopped, eyeing it carefully. It was alive, and enormous, plenty big and sturdy enough to hold whatever he would build. It was incredibly far away from any sort of civilization, too, which was perfect for Velvet, and he could even hear the sound of a brook not too far away.

Planting his feet and putting his hands on his hips, Rokurou puffed out his chest proudly and declared, "Right here."

"Right here what?" Velvet asked, sounding nonplussed.

He turned on her, grinning, and gestured at the tree. "This is where we'll have our treehouse."

"You were serious about that?!" she exclaimed, putting her hand to her forehead in that way she did when she was fed up. "_Rokurou_…"

"I'm telling you, there's nothing to it," he insisted. "I bet I could get us set up in no time."

Shaking her head, Velvet turned and started walking south, not in the direction they'd come from.

Rokurou blinked. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"Away from you and this harebrained scheme of yours," Velvet shot over her shoulder. "I'll find some place we can stay elsewhere."

"But Velvet-!" He sprinted after her to cut her off. _I can't let her leave. Sorey told me to keep an eye on her._

"I'm not going to go to Ladylake, or anywhere near people," Velvet snapped. "Your stupid debt isn't in jeopardy. Just…don't rope me into this nonsense. Stay here with your stupid tree and I'll come back when I find something we can actually use."

"But…" _She really doesn't think I can do it, _he thought, and he winced at the jarring _thunk_ in his chest as he failed to feel something. "I…I can't let you walk away, Velvet," he managed after a few moments. "I have to-"

"Tell you what," Velvet interrupted, "how about we make a competition out of it? You try to build your treehouse, I'll look for a shelter we can take over, and whoever gets what they want first, that's where we'll live."

"A competition, huh?" Rokurou chuckled despite himself. "You know my weakness." There was no way he could turn down a challenge; she had him cornered. More importantly, he knew she felt the same way - she would try to win, focus all her attention on finding something to her liking and coming back for him as quickly as she could…so in a way, he would still know exactly where she was and what she was up to.

"Well?"

"You're on," he grinned. "Better search quickly."

"I could probably take a year and still beat you," Velvet said coldly, brushing past him.

_Thunk._ "See you soon," Rokurou called after her.

"We'll see."

And she rounded a tree and was gone.

Alone now, Rokurou allowed himself to cringe, fighting down the hollow ache in his chest. _How does she do this to me? _he wondered. _It's been fifteen hundred years, and I haven't once noticed or cared about my missing emotions._ Then, suddenly, he laughed at himself. _Why am I complaining? Without emotions, her insults mean nothing to me. It's an _advantage_ of lacking emotions, like I keep saying…_

Shaking his head at himself, Rokurou drew his blades. If he was going to build a house, the first thing he needed was wood, and there were trees everywhere. _Nothing to it._

~o~

Velvet stormed through the forest, relieved to finally be rid of Rokurou. During the trek back from Lothringen, her wrath had eased - apart from the incident in the far west town, she had been in a sort of daze since accepting that this really was the world she'd left behind, with not much room to spare for her hatred.

But now, the hatred flowed, strong and steady, permeating her being and comforting her with its scalding warmth.

_He's such an idiot,_ she raged internally. _Even I don't know how to build a house, and at least I actually spent some of my life learning domestic skills! Maybe his family as a whole weren't just sword-brained thugs, but he definitely is. How am I stuck with nothing to my name but this moron? I'd be less frustrated if it was Magilou!_

Each beat of her malevolent heart sent scorching hatred surging through her veins, and she embraced it, clung to it; after all, hatred was her identity. She was the therion of hatred, perfectly receptive to the imperfection that was hatred-malevolence. _Hate, hate, hate,_ chanted her pulse, and she listened to it and nothing else. It wasn't until a daemon erupted from beneath her feet and she noticed her therion claw was dragging along the ground that she realized she was letting it burn a little too hot.

_Cool it a little,_ she told herself as she ate the daemon she'd just birthed, leaving nothing but a few scraps of dead plant to fall back to the ground. _Too much, and you'll poison Phi._

_Phi…_

It fully struck her then: Phi was the divine Empyrian now, the Dragon of Light; the earth was his vessel. All her hatred would only hurt him, even if it wasn't actually directed his way.

_But I won't contain it, like Rokurou and Artorius,_ she thought angrily. _I won't deny what I am. I'm not like them. I am a monster, and I own it!_

Clamping down on her feelings, she refocused on her surroundings, determined to end Rokurou's latest idiotic plan and finally beat him at something, if nothing else. _I am a monster,_ she repeated to herself. _I am a therion…_

_…__But I didn't choose to become a therion._

Wherever that thought came from, it unsettled her. She'd never considered it before, but unlike most other daemons, she'd been forcibly turned into one. In fact…she hadn't really even embraced malevolence until _after_ she became one - by the time she had finished processing what had happened to Laphicet and begun to hate Artorius, she already had a daemon arm.

What did that mean for her?

_Nothing,_ she told herself. _It means nothing. I have killed and consumed countless innocents, and destroyed entire towns. There is no hope for me. It doesn't matter if my becoming a daemon didn't happen the normal way, what I did with this power means that I can never be human again._

Shoving the flickering doubt aside, she continued plowing through the forest in search of some building to take over, as the sun slowly crossed the sky overhead.

~o~

"Right, that should be enough!" Rokurou said aloud to no one as night began to fall.

Dusk light illuminated the clearing that his work had widened considerably, and the pile of planks he'd cut perfectly from the fallen timber - though thin slices were the Rangetsu style, even Rokurou knew that boards for construction had to be decently thick, so he'd been careful to give them some weight. The result was a sizable amount, given that it had taken ten thousand swings of his sword to make - it counted as his practice swings in his mind, even more so for the fact that it did technically involve killing.

"Now…to figure out how to assemble them." Rokurou eyed the branches and twigs he'd gathered from the logs. Watching Velvet repair his clothes had given him an idea of how to put things together, and this was his baseline as he began boring holes in the planks, sizing them just big enough to fit branches through.

First, he'd need a way to climb up into the tree. That was simple: a ladder, made of boards stuck into the trunk. At first, he tried one peg per board, but quickly discovered that these would rotate like the blades of a windmill. No matter; another hole, another peg, and each board was stable.

_Wait, is this too noticeable?_ he wondered when he'd finished the ladder. Looking at it, it would be pretty hard to miss, not nearly as subtle as he would have liked his hideout's entrance to be. _I can change it later,_ he decided; _what matters right now is finishing this before Velvet finds an abandoned shack._ Just getting this far had taken longer than he would have liked - trees were tougher to cut with swords than he'd expected - and he was tired. _She's probably tired too,_ he thought, and he climbed his new ladder into the upper branches of the tree. _No harm in taking a nap._

~o~

Determination to beat Rokurou, to shove something in his smug face and make him feel one of the few forms of pain he was still susceptible to, kept Velvet on her feet even after night fell - that and the occasional lesser daemon she managed to scrounge up. To a daemon, the dark wasn't quite as much of an issue, so she didn't think she was missing anything under the trees, but there didn't seem to be anything for the taking. When the forest eventually ended and she reached open plains, she fell to her knees.

No one made houses in the open.

Above her, the moon was bright and full. Even in the silver light, it was clear that none of what she saw was remotely familiar, not even here in old Eastgand. _And it never will be,_ she thought. _My world ended a long time ago. I don't belong here._

Exhausted, and reminded once again of the pointlessness of her existence, Velvet didn't resist falling over in the tall grass. It was softer than the rocky, uneven places she'd slept for the last two nights, at any rate, and soon, she was asleep…and dreaming.

_She was standing on a lit stage in front of a packed audience. To her left, a woman in a jester hat and a skirt made of books danced in place._

_"__Hello, and welcome to the show!" Magilou announced. "We're your lovely comediennes for the day, Magi and Vel!" She twirled and struck a pose, pointing her fingers and winking at the crowd. "Magikazam!"_

_Velvet surveyed the audience. The faces were shadowy; the only things she could see clearly were the eyes, all fixed on her._

_"__Well," she sighed, "I've had worse nightmares."_

_A chuckle rippled through the crowd._

_"__So, what have you been up to today, former Lord of Calamity?" Magilou asked Velvet._

_"'__Former'?" Velvet demanded. "What do you mean 'former'?"_

_More chuckles._

_"__I mean, the Empyrian you opposed as a daemon lord is gone," Magilou said. "You don't have any aspirations to spread chaos. Where does that leave you?"_

_"__I…I don't know," Velvet answered honestly._

_"__Don't you have a job to do or something?" Magilou pressed._

_"__I…" Velvet sighed resignedly. "Maotelus thinks Rokurou and I can be purified if we figure out how our malevolence works."_

_"__Wow!" Magilou exclaimed in an over-exaggerated manner as the audience 'oooh'-ed. "That must keep you pretty busy."_

_"__Not really," Velvet dismissed. "We can't be purified, and there's no point pretending we can - Rokurou and I are evil, that's all there is to it. We will never be human."_

_For some reason, this caused the audience to laugh._

_"__Oh, come now," Magilou pouted when they were quiet once more, "surely the mighty Empyrian wouldn't send his most beloved friend on a fool's errand!"_

_"__He only believes in me because he loves me," Velvet grumbled. "Not that there's anything about me to love."_

_This, too, apparently warranted laughter._

_"__But Maotelus wasn't the one who gave you the mission, right?" Magilou asked pointedly. "Or at least, he wasn't the first to say it could be done?"_

_"__No…that was Innominat," Velvet admitted._

_"__You hear that, folks?" Magilou called to her audience. "The fallen Empyrian of Suppression believes that the former Lord of Calamity can redeem herself and earn a happy life, but boring old Vel here disagrees with him!"_

_This time, the laughter was uproarious; Velvet was fairly certain she saw someone fall out of their seat from hysterics. Even in her dream, her face flushed._

_"__All she's doing," Magilou continued when the crowd had quieted enough for her to be heard, "is fighting with the daemon who gave her a second chance. On the battlefield, on the housing market, in the bedroom-"_

_"__Hey, he started that!" Velvet exclaimed defensively._

_"__Yup!" Magilou said cheerfully. "And both times, you finished it!"_

_More laughter, as though this was a hilarious pun or something._

_"__I don't need to take this from you!" Velvet snapped._

_"__Well, it's not like you're doing anything more useful with your time," Magilou teased._

_Another laugh from the audience. If nothing else, Magilou had them on fire._

_"__Well, everyone?" Magilou asked, turning to the crowd. "What should she do now?"_

_Some truly absurd suggestions were called from the shadowy audience, such as "Marry her dead brother!" and "Go home to Elysia!" - and those were the more coherent ones._

_"__You hear that?" Magilou asked, turning back to Velvet. "They all say you should believe in yourself!"_

_"__I'm…fairly certain I didn't hear that," Velvet told her._

_"__If the Empyrian who believes all human emotions should be suppressed thinks you can deserve happiness, why can't _you_ believe it?" Magilou asked, crossing her arms._

_"__I…" Velvet gritted her teeth. "That was the part of him that was my brother," she growled. "I am the Lord of Calamity!"_

_"__Not anymore," Magilou said in a singsong voice. "The Lord of Calamity wouldn't want to move far away from all civilization to avoid poisoning humans with her malevolence, would she? The Lord of Calamity is all about making more daemons!"_

_"__I…what?" Velvet asked._

_"__That_ is _the purpose of the Lord of Calamity, you know," Magilou teased, "but you aren't doing that anymore. Everyone knows it's not like you're determined to live out into the middle of nowhere just so people won't have to listen to you abuse your boy toy; you don't want your malevolence leaking all over society." She shrugged._

_As the audience chuckled, Velvet crossed her arms. "So what?" she demanded. "My choices don't change what I am."_

_"__Oho, so you admit it!" Magilou exclaimed, pointing at her. "Even while amusing yourself, you were thinking of the innocent people your presence might hurt!"_

_"__It may have crossed my mind," Velvet conceded begrudgingly. "Does it matter? The fact alone that my presence would create more daemons means I don't deserve a happy life."_

_"__You know you can't control that, right?" Magilou asked, smirking. "What kind of self-pitying loser blames themselves for something they can't control?"_

_"__Shut up!" Velvet roared as the audience erupted into more laughter, brandishing her daemon arm. "Don't you get it?! I'm a monster! I'll devour you! I'll devour all of you!" She turned on the crowd and started for the edge of the stage. "Anything to shut you all up!"_

_Magilou _tsk_ed. "You wouldn't really hurt our adoring fans, would you?" she asked._

_"__Try me!" Velvet snarled._

_But the audience kept laughing, and Magilou crossed her arms and smirked. "Folks, I think our nineteen-year-old-girl-in-a-centuries-old-daemon-body is a little cranky," she said snidely. "Maybe she should go back to Rokurou and blow off some steam so she can figure out what she really wants."_

_As the crowd erupted into even more laughter, Velvet swiped her claw at Magilou. "Shut up!" she shouted again. "Shut up! You don't know anything! A monster is all I can ever be! You were there, you saw the things I did! Shut up! _Shut up_! _SHUT UP_!"_

_But suddenly, it wasn't Magilou she was tearing to pieces, it was Celica._

With a panicked gasp, Velvet woke. Dawn was just starting to light the horizon.

Panting, she slumped back into the grass. _Just a nightmare._ She would have to get used to them now - nightmares were all she'd ever had as a daemon, it was a wonder they hadn't started plaguing her sooner.

But nightmare-Magilou's words haunted her. Innominat believed in the total suppression of all human emotions, yet his final wish had been for her to earn her way back to happiness; if he of all beings could believe that that was even possible, who was she to say otherwise?

_I'm the Lord of Calamity, that's who I am, _she reminded herself. _Even if I'm only a former daemon lord, __I stand against all that is good in this world. That's why I have to live out here, away from society; my presence alone would destroy entire towns in a matter of days, even if I didn't mean for it to._

Instead of just angry, though, in that moment, she couldn't help but also feel a bit sad.

With a sigh, she stood up and started her search again. She doubted Rokurou had made much progress building a treehouse, but the sooner this stupid contest was over, the better…not that she had any idea what she would do once it was done.


	12. What Lies Before Our Eyes

Rokurou woke at dawn, already grinning. Leaping down from his perch gracefully in the same motion it took for him to get up, he surveyed what he had to work with.

The wood was sliced perfectly, of course - the two greatest swords in history could cut through thick metal armor and even stone (if handled right), he had no concerns about how his blades dealt with trees. But now came the hard part, the part that didn't involve just mindlessly slicing things: he had to actually put the wood together. This gave him pause. Frowning, he started picking up the boards and testing them as he would blades, checking for weaknesses and hardness.

To his surprise, the different trees he'd cut up had very different qualities on close inspection. Some wood was bendier than others, some had chunky bark while others had bark that could almost work as rope, some wood dented under his full strength while other slabs held firm…He'd never thought of trees as being variable - to him, a tree was a tree.

The bark was a weak point on all the planks and had to come off, that was the first thing he could say for sure. Some bark, the chunky kind, was basically useless, but the fibrous, ropey kind might have some use - he'd seen the way Velvet tied knots while reassembling his clothes, maybe he could imitate that somehow. It was strange, but by the time he was hauling planks up his shoddy ladder to start placing a floor, he was kind of having fun. _If I wasn't a Rangetsu, I could have had a future as a carpenter,_ he thought to himself with a smile.

Getting the boards to lie flat was a new chore, but by cutting out chunks of the canopy and some notches in the outlying branches, Rokurou actually had a solid floor that he was almost confident in within an hour. Sure, nothing was holding the planks down, but the layout was perfect and the wood was solid. _I can do this,_ he found himself thinking. _I'll have a shelter built long before Velvet finds an abandoned shack or whatever. Easy._

When was the last time he'd found enjoyment in something other than wielding a sword? Even before he became a daemon, Rokurou couldn't think of a time. _Maybe there really is more to life than fighting…_

_Nah, who am I kidding?_

~o~

Velvet ran through the long grass as the sun rose, half-wishing for a geoboard, her dream of Magilou reminding her of the convenient transportation. Of course, there was nothing worth looking for out in the open. She needed to find some hills, or another forest, or hell, even a cave. Anything far away from people. She refused to give any thought to what would happen once she actually found a place suitably out of the way; it didn't matter. Beating Rokurou mattered. Of course, if the sword-crazed daemon managed to build something that stood up for more than five seconds, she would be impressed; it was more that she didn't know how to take her time when pursuing a goal. Full speed was her only speed, no matter the task. Unless it was pointless, like the one Maotelus had set forth for her.

_Maotelus._ The one person she had come to love after losing her family, and he wasn't even her Phi anymore, not after centuries of apparently being an Empyrian wielding the Silver Flame to heal the world of malevolence. He hadn't even kept the name she gave him; even if it meant the same thing, it really wasn't the same. It wasn't hard to understand why - a name given by the Lord of Calamity was hardly befitting of a god - but it still hurt. And yet…he still wanted her to find a way to be healed by his power. Even though he'd shed her name for him, he hadn't forgotten her…

Shaking her head to rid herself of the stray bit of doubt, Velvet refocused on her surroundings. Some dark patch, some unevenness in the ground, _something_, her eyes scanned the horizon all around her as she ran as fast as she could. When nothing appeared, her mind once again drifted to thoughts of Maotelus. Why did he still believe in her, after all this time? After she had left him to fend for himself in the world, as Laphicet had essentially done to her when he offered to be sacrificed to Innominat without telling her? Maotelus should hate her. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she saw parallels between her brother's betrayal and her leaving of Phi. She did it to save him, yet it meant leaving him without someone he loved, the person who gave his life meaning. She had felt there was no other future for her, nothing else she could do with her existence that would be worthwhile, but she hadn't even told him what was going to happen ahead of time, though of course she had known.

So why didn't he hate her?

_Because he's Phi,_ came the most obvious answer. _He doesn't hate. It's just not in him._

But surely, that had been because he was a child when she knew him? Everyone learned to hate when they grew up, when they learned that the world was cruel and hatred was part of existence…right?

_Stop it!_ she told herself, shaking herself back to the present once more. _It doesn't matter!_

But what if it did? What if there really was something in her worth-?

_NO! Stop it! You are the Lord of Calamity,_ she told herself. _Innominat is wrong. Maotelus is wrong. The reason the Silver Flame can't heal you is because you're too corrupt to be healed. That's all there is to it. As soon as you can prove it to him, he'll give up on you like he should._

And she focused again on the task at hand.

~o~

Walls, as it turned out, were significantly harder to build than a floor.

How did one make planks stand on their edges without falling over? Rokurou's initial idea to use strips of bark as rope wasn't panning out like he'd hoped - the rope got between the planks if he tied them together, leaving huge gaps that completely defeated the purpose of a wall.

In the meantime, he bored some holes through the floor and the branches that supported it, through which he could fit some more branches, cut down to be level with the planks once they were inserted. This much he felt reasonably confident in. An odd intuition had told him that the hardest boards would be best suited to the floor, and the more flexible planks would work better for the walls because of the wind and stuff - it wasn't _that_ far removed from the principle he'd learned from the orichalcum blade that had snapped like a twig the first time he tried to use it against Shigure.

But how to make the damn boards stay up?!

After some trial and error, Rokurou managed to make one wall using the same basic principle as the floor, pegs in the tree, but this only worked on the one wall that faced the trunk of his chosen perch. Sitting down on the floor of his one-wall treehouse, Rokurou closed his eyes and thought.

Thinking wasn't something he was particularly good at, but the drive to beat Velvet's challenge was inspiration enough. He thought about how she'd bored holes in the cloth in order to fit threads through them and stitch them together. Would that work? No, then there would be holes in the wall where the ropes were. But…in order to fit together, things needed holes to allow each other entrance.

Suddenly, he got an idea. Taking out his short swords for the more precise work, he carved a notch in the bottom board of his one wall, then cut at the end of one of the other planks he'd decided were wall material until it had a node roughly the shape and size of the notch. Using the hilt of one short sword like a hammer, he managed to beat it into its designated spot.

Though it was shaky, it held. Barely.

_The other end makes it weak; nothing's supporting it,_ he realized, and quickly set about doing something similar with another plank. Once he had two single-plank walls, the structure was slightly more stable. _This won't work for the side with the door, and I'll need to find a way to make it actually withstand some pressure, but it should hold for now._

_I am so gonna win!_

~o~

Noon came, and Velvet was still out on open plains. Even worse, nothing worth devouring had crossed her path. She wanted to scream. _It should not be this hard to find a house ravaged by daemons, new world or no!_ she thought furiously.

Then, after another few minutes, she saw a smudge on the horizon. Homing in on it, she redoubled her efforts, running faster than any human could dream of, and soon, another forest materialized. Relief crashed over her as she dove under the leaves. _Something must be here. It must be._

No longer running, she searched the rest of the day, feeling no need for sleep. Her victory was here. She just knew it.

~o~

It was the middle of the night when Rokurou finished placing the last bundle of leaves on top of the roof he'd so precariously perched atop the three walls he'd managed to make. _There isn't much else I can do with what I've got,_ he decided as he surveyed his work from below. _Damn…how do houses not fall apart, anyway? Nails, that's right, people use nails. Well, I'm not a blacksmith, I can't make nails. Maybe I can buy some tomorrow, trade a bunch of these leftover planks or something. _For he had chopped quite a bit more wood than he had ended up using.

_Oh well, nothing for it right now._

Though the walls were far from sturdy, he decided to give the place its first test. He climbed inside, took off his tunic, drew a sword, and began his practice swings. The wood was solid under his feet as he swung at nothing, and the structure as a whole didn't seem to shift all that much with his movement. The fact that there were only three walls was a bit of a drawback, but it was definitely serviceable as a shelter.

When his practice was done, he laid down on the floor he had built himself, utterly smug. _Just need to get some nails to make all this more solid, and I win. No way Velvet has found a place by now._

~o~

Velvet knew there was no way Rokurou had built something halfway decent yet when the moon rose, but she had expected to find something of use by now. Gritting her teeth against the first draws of fatigue, she started to pick up her pace through the woods until she was running. And then-

An irregularity under the branches caught her eye, and she swerved from the path she'd been on, skidding to a halt in front of what appeared to be a long-abandoned old shack.

_Yes!_ she thought triumphantly. _Exactly what I was looking for!_

Granted, the place was ancient, and probably needed some cleaning up…No sense claiming victory just yet, not before she was sure the place was habitable.

First, she inspected the outside, and found what appeared to be the remains of a second building a short ways away, all but completely destroyed by the growth of bushes and young trees. From what little she could piece together, though, it appeared to be an old barn. Between that and the sounds of a stream barely audible through the trees, it was likely that this house had once been self-sustained. _Perfect. No ties to society at all._

Next, the building that hadn't collapsed yet. Badly-rusted hinges creaked as she wrenched the door open, but at least the door itself didn't appear to be rotting yet, though the various mosses and vines nearly swallowing the structure didn't give Velvet much confidence. Inside was no better; creepers and mushrooms abounded in the dark rooms, and it looked like a fair amount of dirt had gotten in, too. Still, some basic furniture didn't look too much worse for the wear - a fireplace, an old iron pot, even a moth-eaten old bed in one room.

_A bed_.

Her search had left her tired. Confident that Rokurou was nowhere near close to finishing his impossible task, Velvet dragged herself over to the block of softness, wanting nothing more than to lie down and drift off to sleep in her new home. She was not so tired, however, that she ignored the thumping sound that started to come from elsewhere in the small house.

Immediately on guard, Velvet released her blade, her daemon arm up and ready to burst free of its bandages should the need arise, and waited. After about a minute, an orc daemon lumbered around the corner holding an old garden hoe. From the tattered remains of the clothes - some sort of purple dress, it looked like - and the knee-high boots, Velvet got a feeling that the daemon had once been a woman. Now, its beady eyes caught sight of her, and it roared, hurling its bloated form through the doorframe at the intruder.

None of this was in any way a deterrent. In fact, Velvet was glad for the chance to consume orc flesh again; it almost tasted like Rokurou's blood.

~o~

The sun was high by the time Rokurou awoke in his new home - not quite noontime-high, but getting there. Cursing himself for sleeping in, he leapt out of his tree shelter and started grabbing as many leftover planks as he could carry. _This should be enough to trade for some nails, right?_

Carrying a load of lumber into Ladylake on his back was a welcome challenge. It relied on strength, not ingenuity or crafting skill, and strength was one thing he was confident he could pull off. Sure, people looked at him funny once he entered society while carrying the load, but as always, he didn't care. Once he was in the marketplace, it didn't take much to find a carpenter, not with the attention his presence drew.

"I was hoping to trade this for some nails," Rokurou explained to the bewildered-looking man. "It's just leftover from a little project I've been working on. Can you help me out?"

"Er…" Eyeing Rokurou uncertainly, the carpenter walked over to the pile of boards Rokurou had dropped in the middle of the bazaar and began inspecting them. A shocked gasp told Rokurou he had miscalculated something. "Where did you find this?" exclaimed the man, his hands grasping one of the remaining hardwood planks.

"Uh…in the woods to the east," Rokurou answered, confused.

"This is some of the highest-quality skibus wood I've ever seen! How on earth did you manage to cut through it?"

"My swords," Rokurou replied, putting a fond hand on the handles of his blades.

"Impossible!" the man stated. "Wood this hard can't be cut by blades forged for battle!"

"I have some pretty special swords, not to brag or anything," Rokurou said. "I can cut this right now to prove it to you, if you like."

"You'd have to be a fool," his buyer muttered, but he set the plank down on the cobblestone and stepped back.

Without hesitating, Rokurou drew Stormhowl and cut through the wood cleanly, leaving a slash in the stone underneath.

"Whoops," he chuckled, putting the blade away. "Got a little carried away there."

"Incredible," the man gasped. "Well, in any case…I believe you when you say you cut this yourself. You have some truly remarkable blades."

"That I do," Rokurou said proudly. "So, uh…can I get some nails?"

"Some nails?" laughed the man. "Sir, I would pay top gald for this plank alone! Oh, and you have several!" he noted, pulling out a few similar pieces from the pile.

"Really, I just want some nails," Rokurou said. "Oh, uh, and if you insist, a little gald for a good drink wouldn't be something I'd say no to."

"You say this is left over from a project you were working on?" the man questioned.

"Yes," Rokurou answered cautiously, uncertain how much he should tell about what he hoped would be a hideout for himself and Velvet.

"Yet you don't have any nails."

"Well, no, I just kinda…got to work," Rokurou admitted. "I'm a swordsman, not an architect."

"You…" Something between disappointment and anger clouded the carpenter's face. "A swordsman, working with wood of this quality…" he grumbled.

"Hey, you can have the rest," Rokurou told him. "I think I have some more, this was just all I could carry."

"Well, you can carry the other lengths of wood here back to wherever you came from, it's not worth much," the carpenter informed him. "These five planks of skibus wood, though…What was it you wanted? Some nails? I'll give you the largest sack of nails I have in exchange for them, and also some sandpaper so you don't get splinters doing whatever you're doing, plus twenty thousand gald. Any time you wish to bring more skibus wood, I'll pay you in even more gald."

"O-Okay," Rokurou said, recognizing how exceptionally lucky he'd gotten that some of the wood he'd brought was so valuable. Still, having to carry back most of what he'd hauled all the way here, plus a bag of metal, was just a little disheartening.

Or, at least, it would have been, if he could feel such things.

~o~

Well-fed and well-rested, Velvet rose in the middle of the day to finish cleaning out her new house. Digging out mushrooms and vines wasn't a typical housekeeping task, but it would be worth it to rub it in Rokurou's face. There was even an old broom in a closet, dusty but perfectly useable, and though most of the cleanup required actual digging - which her therion claw made much easier - the broom certainly didn't hurt with the finishing touches on the floors. Cleaning the glass was another matter, but at least there were only a few windows. By the time night fell, though still rough around the edges, the old cabin was very much habitable.

As the sun set, Velvet laid down to sleep, satisfied that she had won.

~o~

Nails, Rokurou decided, made everything better. Not only did it add a significant amount of sturdiness to his interlocking-corners idea, but by splitting some leftover branches and nailing them vertically along the walls, he could cut windows without the whole place collapsing. It didn't matter that he'd been given far, far more nails than the situation really warranted; pounding them through wood with the hilts of his short swords was satisfying almost to the point of addictive - it was like stabbing things, but the blades were supposed to stay in. Before long, the inside of the place was lined with half-branches adding structural integrity to the walls and ceiling.

Stepping outside late that afternoon, Rokurou noticed a problem, though: the points of the nails were now sticking out all over the outside of his house. For a moment, he frowned. Then, he got a brilliant idea. Scooping up the chunks of bark he'd cast aside earlier, he set about boring small holes in them with a leftover nail. His first few attempts at this met with the chunk he was working on just splintering into pieces, but soon he realized that he was using too much force. Force was for destruction, but careful and methodical whittling of the wood got him what he needed.

After that, it was just a matter of sticking the bark over the exposed nails, and soon, the place was half as visible from the outside as it had been before. On a sudden burst of inspiration, Rokurou took his swords and cut the edges of the rough ladder he'd made so that they weren't as wide as the trunk of the tree, then began hammering bits of bark to them, until the ladder looked at first glance like a convenient set of protrusions in the tree's surface.

As the sun set, Rokurou climbed into his treehouse, which now lacked only a door instead of an entire fourth wall, and curled up in a corner to sleep, satisfied that he had won.


	13. On This Field Known As World

Nestled in the first bed she'd had since being torn from the earthpulse, Velvet once again found herself dreaming.

_She was in the sanctuary in Loegres. Instead of a priest praying at the altar, though, a familiar redhead knelt before it._

_"__Eleanor?" Velvet asked._

_The woman stood and turned. It was indeed Eleanor. "Velvet," she said. "Our work is not complete."_

_"__Our work?" Velvet was lost._

_"__To spread the word and power of Maotelus," Eleanor explained. "We seek to protect all mankind from malevolence. And yet, we don't have all the answers we need."_

_"__I can't find your answers," Velvet told her, crossing her arms._

_"__Then who can?" she asked sadly. "Our work will never be done…"_

_"__It's not my work, and there _are_ no answers!" Velvet snapped._

_"__How do you know there are no answers when you won't even let yourself ask questions?" asked the exorcist._

_This brought Velvet up short._

_"__Every time you start to ask a question, you dismiss it," Eleanor went on, getting angry now. "Why won't you let yourself search for answers? Your questions are not meaningless; they will pave the way to a brighter future. Did you not dream? Did you not once want a perfect world?"_

_"__There is no perfect world," Velvet argued._

_"__A world without malevolence cannot exist," Eleanor conceded, "but that doesn't mean a perfect world cannot exist, either. And your questions will lead you to the right answers…if you stop dismissing them."_

_"__Who am I to find these answers for you?" Velvet demanded. "Why are you turning to me? I was the Lord of Calamity!"_

_"__Who knows malevolence better than you?" Eleanor reasoned._

_This, too, brought Velvet up short. In her dream, it made sense, her usual arguments crumbling around her into dust. But there was so much dust…Eleanor's face was obscured by the powder falling like snow…or ash from a volcanic eruption…_

_A chill wind blew, cold as the Gaiburk ice fields; in her dream, daemon immunity to the cold wasn't a factor. She felt herself being frozen by indecision, by fear - fear that she wouldn't find the answers, fear that the answers did not exist…or worse, that they did._

_"__You have all the time in the world to discover your fate," came Eleanor's voice from somewhere through the blizzard. "Why do you squander it fighting the one who only wished to give you a second chance?"_

_"__Rokurou didn't care about me!" Velvet snarled. "He doesn't care about anyone!"_

_"__You don't care about you, either," pointed out the distant voice of the long-dead exorcist. "Stop running from the answers. Run towards them instead. They aren't so far away."_

_As the snow-ash began to pile up around her, pushing at her, Velvet pushed back, more out of contrarian instinct than a desire to move forward. Dragging her feet through mounds of snow that only built up the more she walked, she pushed, wanting out of the maelstrom yet afraid of what lay beyond. The more she worried, the higher the snow piled, until it was no longer a matter of pushing through with her legs but also her arms._

_"__Your doubts will doom the world," said Eleanor's voice, though it sounded different now. "So long as you exist, there can be hope; yet so long as you give up, there will be only despair. All your doubts will render everything as pointless as you fear it ultimately is. Only you can make something of what you've been given."_

_Velvet opened her mouth to speak - to say what, she didn't know - and the avalanche buried her, filling her mouth and nose with frigid dust and rendering her motionless. She struggled, but the pressure only increased, until-_

Struggling for air, Velvet lurched into a sitting position, her eyes flying open. Panting, she looked around, trying to understand what was happening.

_Just another nightmare._

Sighing with relief, she fell back. Birds chirped outside, so the sun must have risen; after catching her breath, Velvet stood up. _Time to find Rokurou and put an end to his stupid plan,_ she thought, dismissing the vision.

As she walked out the front door, she realized she didn't know how she would find her cabin again once she left to claim victory from Rokurou. No, that wasn't hard: pathfinding. Before she was a daemon lord, she was a hunter; she knew pathfinding. Mark the path, right?

Easy. She did have a daemon arm, after all.

Stepping out into a cool, cloudy morning, Velvet oriented herself, turning in the general direction she knew she had come from, and unleashed her therion claw and started walking, haphazardly scoring talon marks in the trees she passed. No one but her would follow this trail; surely, even in this era, people knew the marks of a daemon's claw when they saw them.

_Hellion. Whatever._

Why did they bother coming up with a different name? Was there an actual difference between a daemon and a hellion, like there was a difference between malakhim and seraphim? Then again, did it even matter? It wasn't like she could ask anyone anyway, not without revealing what she herself was, without running the risk of poisoning other people with her hatred…

She couldn't be in society at all. Rokurou was the only companion she would ever have.

_Stop it,_ she told herself._ No time to be sad about that._

Instead of continuing to dwell on the unchangeable, she began imagining Rokurou's face on every tree she swiped as she made her way back through the forest. This existence was his fault. Why couldn't he, _he_, of all people, have just let her go, let her stay with her brother? Rokurou didn't care about anything, he was always the first to say so! Why was he the one to rip her back into reality, into a life as a daemon lord? How _dare_ he be the one?

Velvets marks on the trees she passed became more and more vicious; some fell behind her, and she hardly noticed. Lashing out vented her hatred just enough that she could let herself be consumed by it without it growing out of control, and before she knew it, she was back at the plains. Not wanting to stop hitting things, she turned on a tree and ripped it into pieces, imagining Rokurou's smug, self-satisfied smirk.

"I hate you!" she shouted at the innocent pile of smashed wood as she continued assaulting it with blade and daemon claw. "I hate you, Rokurou! I hate you!"

When the former tree was essentially a pile of sawdust, she was able to calm down just enough to catch her breath.

"I hate you," she whispered through her gasps for air, her cheeks oddly wet. "I _hate_ you…"

~o~

Rokurou was woken by water dripping on his face.

Startled, he stood up, looking around. Above, the unmistakeable sound of rain explained the unusual wakeup call.

_I guess the roof isn't as solid as I thought,_ he mused, taking inventory in the faint morning light and counting no less than five leaks. _Weird. I piled a lot of leaves on top of it, what else did it need? How do roofs normally keep water out, anyway?_

This was something he had no answer for. But no way would Velvet concede defeat if the roof of his treehouse leaked, so he had to figure something out.

For the rest of the morning, Rokurou tried piling leaves, bark, more planks, whatever he could on top of the spots that let rainwater through. He got thoroughly soaked in the process, but hardly noticed - he _had_ to win. After the rain stopped about an hour later, though, he had no means of knowing if he'd succeeded or not, so he decided to shrug it off. Maybe some more planks of that special wood would buy him the information he needed. The house was still done, for most intents and purposes; as long as it didn't rain again, it was fine.

What about a door? Did it need a door? Windowpanes? Groaning, Rokurou rubbed his head. No, it was fine. He wasn't an architect, it didn't have to be perfect. The problem was, now he had to wait for Velvet to come back and see his handiwork. Who knew how long that could take? What was he supposed to do in the meantime?

Well, the only thing he really knew how to do, of course.

Drawing his blades, Rokurou set out in search of daemons to kill.

~o~

It took Velvet a quarter of a day to cross the plains again, but she felt confident in her direction by keeping in mind the mountains in the distance and, once the clouds cleared, the position of the sun overhead. Shame she didn't have a compass…

_A compass. Phi. Maotelus._

_What do you want from me? _she wondered as she ran. _What do you expect me to find? That I can go back? I can't go back. There is no going back for me, not now that I've been returned to this reality. Not for Rokurou, either. Are you really waiting for us to seek you out, ready to be purged by the Silver Flame? Even an Empyrian would die of old age before that happened…_

Gritting her teeth, she shoved aside the pervasive thoughts that refused to leave her alone. It was a struggle that lasted her whole journey, all the way to the afternoon. By the time she was close to where she had parted ways from Rokurou, she was almost looking forward to seeing him. At least it would give her something to think about besides the pointless existence she was now forced to live.

Finally, she thought she was near the tree Rokurou had fixated on, and slowed her pace, keeping an eye out. She doubted Rokurou had given up, that wasn't like him, but she certainly wasn't expecting the sight that met her as she rounded a tree into a clearing.

_What…?_

~o~

Rokurou spent the rest of the day doing whatever he felt like. After a bit of training, he went back and grabbed a couple more planks of that special wood to trade to the carpenter for a lot more gald than he thought wood should really be worth, and even chopped up some of the apparently-worthless wood to make a shelf for the bottles of alcohol he bought from the profits. After whiling away the afternoon hours hunting down and killing daemons, he looked forward to sitting in his new hideout, drinking sake and waiting for Velvet. It would probably be a while before she came back.

But when he returned to his treehouse that very evening, it was only to find Velvet rooted to the spot in front of it, her golden eyes wide.

"Oh hey, Velvet," he said cheerfully.

Quick as a whip, she turned on him, her blade extended.

"Whoa, easy, it's just me!" he told her, hands raised.

"You…" Her gaze drifted back to the treehouse "What in the world…?"

"You like it?" he smirked, walking past her. "I told you, nothing to it."

"No," she said softly, and she darted forward, pushing ahead of him, to scale his ladder. Frowning, he followed her up, and saw her pushing, then punching, the inside walls. Granted, she was using her human hand, but he still winced at how hard her blows got when gentle shoves and knocks didn't so much as rattle the structure.

"Take it easy, it's not daemonproof," he told her.

Glowering, she turned on him. "You did not make this," she hissed.

Placing his hand over his heart, Rokurou pledged, "I swear to you on my swords, and my honor as the last member of the Rangetsu clan, everything you see here is my handiwork and mine alone." He thought for a moment. "Except the nails, I didn't make the nails, I bought those. But I'm the one who put them in!" he added as she opened her mouth.

"I…didn't expect you to make nails," she said, almost dumbly.

He crossed his arms and smiled at her. "So?"

"How the hell did you chop the planks?" Velvet demanded.

"With my swords."

"You can't cut lumber with swords, Rokurou!" she groaned, a hand clasped to her forehead once more. "The blades would chip and bend to the point of being useless by the time you finished with one tree!"

"Ah, but Stormhowl and Stormquell don't chip or bend," Rokurou told her proudly. "Stormhowl can cut down mountains, and Stormquell can stand up to Stormhowl. I knew there would be no damage from simple trees."

"You…" She shook her head. "Your swords are the stuff of legends, and you used them for lumber?"

"That's the Rangetsu style!" Rokurou declared proudly. "Which makes this the first house ever built Rangetsu style! So? What do you think?"

Tense silence passed for a minute, the air heavy with the question. Then, Velvet sighed.

"Fine," she conceded, "I'm impressed. You happy?"

_THUNK!_ "H-Happy?" he choked through the rattling in his chest.

Staring at him, Velvet's lips slowly twisted into a cruel smile. "Oh, that's right," she sneered; "you can't feel anything, can you?"

_Thunk._ "No," he replied, fighting the urge to wince. "No, I can't."

"Well then, I guess I'll have to find reasons to compliment you more often," Velvet chuckled coldly. "It seems to bother you more than insults do."

_Thunk._ "It doesn't bother me," Rokurou all but sighed. "Nothing bothers me."

"Well, then you won't mind that I found a better place than this a day ago," Velvet stated.

"Oh, you found what you were looking for?" he asked. Shoving aside the hollow ache, he smiled, thinking of his impending victory. "How long ago, exactly? Because this treehouse has been like this for quite a while."

"You can't possibly have done all of this in just two days," Velvet scoffed.

"Uh…that's exactly how long it took, actually," he said. "Why? How long ago did you find what you were looking for?"

"Sunset yesterday," she answered.

Rokurou blinked. "You're joking."

"No. Why?"

"That's exactly when I finished this place."

"Are you kidding me?" she growled.

"No, I'm not, I remember being done at sunset, and it's only been a day since then," Rokurou said, holding up his hands. "I swear on my swords, I'm not just saying this."

"There is _no way_ that _you_ could have built a solid house in two days!" Velvet snapped.

"Seriously, it's not that hard," Rokurou shrugged. "It's not _that_ different from fighting, if you think about it the right way."

"How could building a house possibly be in any way similar to fighting?" Velvet asked, rubbing her forehead in exasperation.

"Well, the nails, for one thing," Rokurou replied; "it's not so different from stabbing, except the blades stay in. And there are places where flexibility is stronger than being solid. Plus you cut things a lot, to make them the right shape and size."

Velvet shook her head, and Rokurou got the sense that he baffled her. _Thunk, _went his heart, though this time he had no idea what it was he could have been failing to feel.

"Well, even if we tied again, I still found a better place to stay than this," she told him at last.

"Wait, before you can say that for sure, I need to see it and find out if I agree," he countered. "If it really was another draw, then either place is equally viable."

"Ugh…that's fair…" To his surprise, Velvet sank down against the wall.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"I've been running at top speed all day, trying to find you so I could put an end to what I thought was a moronic endeavor," she said, her tone distant. "Now I come and find you've actually built something halfway decent…if empty. It's all so pointless…"

"All day?" he repeated. "Maybe you should get some rest. I don't exactly have a bed in here, but-"

"Do _not_ pretend to care about me!" Velvet shouted, causing him to take a step back. "You don't care about anyone!"

_Thunk!_ "I'm just saying, if you were running that hard all day, that's a long time to run," he reasoned. "Hey, get some rest, and then I'll race you to your place, okay?" Another challenge. Maybe that would keep her in check.

"Fine," she murmured, and she slumped over right then and there.

Rokurou blinked; he hadn't expected her to actually give in so easily. _She must be more tired than she looks,_ he thought, and once again, he felt an echo of emptiness where a piece of his soul was missing.

Shrugging it off, he jumped down into the clearing, removed his tunic, and began swinging his sword in his pre-sleep ritual, taking care to murmur his usual exclamations under his breath so as not to wake Velvet - he didn't need her angrier at him. As the sun finished setting, though, he couldn't help thinking about what a lack of emotion really meant.

It hadn't bothered him, not since he'd lost them; as he'd told Lailah, no emotions meant a clearer mind, more focus, less distraction in battle. But now, it also meant that a genuine - if begrudging - compliment from a stonehearted woman, a woman who otherwise despised him, meant nothing to him. In a way, it was…like Innominat's Suppression, but without the lack of desires part: No sadness, but also no joy.

For the first time, he wondered…Who would he be if he could feel happiness? Was that something he wanted, or could ever want?

~o~

A sharp kick in the ribs woke Rokurou from his slumber.

"Wake up!" a harsh voice snapped at him.

Groaning, Rokurou pushed himself up. Velvet stood over him, arms crossed, golden eyes ablaze. A quick glance out one of the windows told him it was dawn.

"Easy," he murmured. "I didn't go to sleep same time as you. Although…" he smirked. "I guess you do have to make up for lost time giving me bruises, huh?"

She growled, but said, "You said you'd race me to the cabin I found. Are we racing or not?"

"You bet!" Rokurou grinned, standing all the way up eagerly. "Nothing's a real challenge anymore unless I'm against you, Velvet."

Turning away, Velvet grumbled, "I won't accept compliments from you."

"No one asked you to," Rokurou countered, leaping down to the ground behind her.

"A fair race, then?" she asked, eyeing him as he took a spot beside her.

"Of course," he replied. "I mean, you're going to have to show me the general direction, but I'll keep up."

"There's a stretch of plains we have to cross, but once we do, a pile of sawdust marks the beginning of a trail I left with my claw," she informed him. "I guess the real race begins there. But you'll have to reach it first."

"A pile of sawdust, huh?" he commented. "How'd you pull that off?"

"I just pretend a tree was you," she shot at him.

_Thunk,_ went his heart, momentarily unsettling Rokurou. It was all the advantage she needed, and she took off in a sprint. Shoving the disturbing feeling aside, Rokurou tore after her.

~o~

Being able to go all-out against an opponent, at any contest, was a welcome feeling for Rokurou. It made him feel alive, like nothing else ever did, and was so hard to come by after centuries of scrounging the world for worthy opponents. That only a daemon lord could ever hope to so much as match him wasn't surprising.

Was _this_, perhaps, what he'd been missing, when he'd felt something in the world was lacking without Velvet? It made more sense than anything else…

In any case, Rokurou put all his strength into running as fast as he could after Velvet, though he did have to stay just behind her for most of the way so he wouldn't get lost. As she'd mentioned, the forest gave way to vast, open grassland, and it stretched beyond the horizon. Here, despite his past experience with the area, with his mind consumed by their contest, he _had_ to follow her lead, or he would have ended up turned around. Still, he had to keep pace with her, and she certainly wasn't holding back. When noon came and went, he didn't even wince; he would run as long as her, or longer.

_Only daemons could run like this,_ he thought, feeling liberated. _Why would I _want_ the Silver Flame to cleanse me of this power?_

Some time after noon had passed, some more woodland came up in front of them, and though Velvet had to veer sideways for a little bit, soon, they both spotted the pile of pulverized wood she had mentioned. There was no time for him to stop and really get a good look at it, but what he glimpsed in passing told him that reducing a tree to such a state took a lot of force and probably a lot of rage. For just a moment, it crossed his mind again that he should care how much Velvet hated him, but he couldn't spare energy on it - there was a clear path now, and he didn't have to follow her lead anymore.

From there, it became a sprint to the finish, the combined force of the two of them running sending branches tossing in the wind and birds taking to the sky to escape the ferocity of the contest. Both gave it their all now, ignoring fatigue and hunger and putting all their energy and focus into the run. If one started to gain a bit of a lead, the other redoubled their efforts and closed the gap, each obsessed with finally besting the other at something, even something as simple as a footrace. Within an hour, the sight of the cabin gave them both an extra burst of energy, and they launched themselves at the shack, with no heed for how sturdy it might be given the force of their arrival.

But of course, they both smacked into the side of the building at the exact same moment. The wall itself buckled, but the rest of the structure didn't entirely collapse, though the roof sagged a bit.

"Are you kidding me?" Velvet roared at Rokurou, gasping for breath.

"Another draw," he panted. "If we were malakhim, I'd think we had some curse on us, like Eizen's Reaper's Curse."

"They're _seraphim_ now," she reminded him in a growl, "and anyway, we already have a curse on us: It's called being alive."

"So," he said, still catching his breath, shrugging this off, "this is the place you found, huh? Sorry about the wall."

"No you're not," she stated. "Besides, I knocked it down too. Maybe you can rebuild it."

"Only if I decide this place is worth keeping," he told her.

"Because that's entirely up to you, is it?" she shot back.

"Well, at least show me around," he shrugged.

Velvet crossed her arms. "Fine." Stepping over the splintered wood, she walked inside.

As it turned out, the cabin was small, but serviceable. Rokurou wasn't entirely blind to the scrapes on the wooden floor that told him a certain daemon claw had been scraping away grime and mold, but in all, it wasn't a bad place. It had furnishings over his treehouse, at least, surprisingly intact ones - an iron pot and the bed caught his eye in particular.

"Was it empty when you found it?" Rokurou eventually asked.

"No," she replied, "there was an orc living in here, but I ate it."

"Guess that explains what happened to the occupants," Rokurou mused.

"So?" Velvet asked apathetically. "Does it meet your high standards?"

"I don't know," Rokurou smirked, "I'm kind of fond of the place I built. I don't often make something with my own two hands. Plus, apparently part of it's built from this really high-quality wood. Skiddy, or biscuit, or something…"

"Skibus?" Velvet gasped. "You made that thing out of _skibus wood_?"

"Yeah, skibus wood, that's the one," Rokurou said. "I found out when I tried to trade some of the leftover planks for a bag of nails I could use to make it more solid. This carpenter in town made it seem like a pretty big deal."

"I'll say it is," Velvet remarked. "Skibus wood was almost as valuable as gold in Aball. Its density makes it incredibly solid, and also makes it resistant to rot or termites, but it's not brittle. A single plank of skibus wood in a structure improved a house's value tenfold. It was rare, though, even back then…I wouldn't have expected it to still exist after all this time."

"Huh," Rokurou said. "Yeah, I noticed it was pretty tough; I couldn't dent it with my hands, not even with my full strength. I used those planks to make the floor, and sold a few of the rest for quite a bit of gald."

"You _sold_-!" Velvet clapped her hand over her forehead. "What kind of idiot just sells skibus wood?!"

"Hey, it wasn't like I was using it," Rokurou pointed out.

Shaking her head, Velvet sighed heavily. "Well, I guess we have to live in your treehouse," she said. "Even if it's only the floor that's made of skibus wood, that makes it a much better place than a shack that's been consumed by vines and mold for who-knows-how-many-years."

"But your find isn't a total loss," Rokurou offered her - a draw was a draw, after all. "We can keep stuff from here that I could never make. That pot looks pretty useful."

"So we furnish your treehouse with what I found in my cabin," Velvet said thoughtfully. "I suppose, since we tied, that's only fair."

"Hey, you wanna find out who can carry more back faster?" Rokurou challenged. He couldn't help it; going up against Velvet in any contest was addictive.

"Let's decide what we're bringing back with us, first," Velvet said. "But then…" She smirked at him. "You're on."

A more thorough search of the cabin revealed a couple of lanterns, plus a few plates, pans, and utensils, all of which Velvet tossed into the huge cooking pot before carrying it all outside on one shoulder - daemons could see just fine in the dark, but lanterns still had their uses. Not to be outdone, Rokurou picked up the entire bed on his back and carried it outside by himself. Glaring at him, Velvet went back in and ransacked the place for any more useful items of any sort, coming out with everything from a dirty broom to a few panes of glass from the windows, as well as a medium-sized wooden chest that Rokurou didn't know had contained a surprising number of old books.

"That's going to break," Rokurou noted, pointing at the glass.

"Shut up," she snapped, wrapping the windowpanes in some of the musty old blankets in the bed. "It's not like you could get any glass for your own windows. You'll just have to be careful."

"So you'll have the heavier load," Rokurou said, watching her thrust everything from a small hammer to a sewing needle into the pot with the kitchen supplies, the box perched on top, "but I'll have the more fragile load."

"And the bigger one," she pointed out.

"True," he conceded, folding his arms. "All right. I'd say that makes us even in what we're carrying."

"So it'll be another race," she grumbled. "Maybe you'll trip and get crushed under the bed's weight."

"I hope not!" Rokurou exclaimed. "I can't think of a less dignified way to go!"

"Then I'll pray to Maotelus it happens," she snapped.

_Thunk._ "Velvet," Rokurou sighed, "why do you hate me so much?"

"Why do you care?" she retorted.

"I don't, but…I still don't get it," he shrugged. _Thunk._

"I've already tried explaining it to you," Velvet said in an icy voice. "If you didn't understand before, I won't bother telling you again."

Silence stretched between them for a minute, a silence that felt heavy with things unsaid, though Rokurou couldn't imagine what those unsaid things might be. _Thunk…thunk…thunk…_

"All right, then," he said at last, shaking off the jarring sensation in his soul and turning to his designated carry load, working to heft it onto his back without letting the glass fall. "Let's get running."

This time, it was Velvet who seemed caught off-guard, as though her mind had wandered. Rokurou wasn't above taking advantage of this, and he took off before she had finished gathering up her own load.

Having not eaten or slept, the run back to the treehouse was much harder on both of them, but Rokurou refused to falter as he carried his unwieldy cargo across forest and grassland; Velvet would probably use her therion claw to carry her pot of assorted items, and one moment's lag would cost him the race. It had been centuries since he'd pushed himself like this - not, he thought, since his fights against his older brother had he felt as if he stood against such adversity. It was as exhilarating as it was exhausting, and he focused on the joy of being able to put everything he had into a fight that wouldn't easily be won, not just against his opponent but also against himself.

His boots pounded against the earth in an even rhythm, his breath coming hard but steady. Was that Velvet he heard running beside him? He couldn't spare the energy to check. There was no risk of getting lost now; he knew the area around his treehouse, in fact he knew the world as a whole better than Velvet did, so he was certain of exactly where he was going. Maybe, just maybe, she didn't know, and that could give him the edge. He couldn't risk wasting it.

Night passed, morning passed, midday passed - the load he was carrying obviously slowed him down - and Rokurou gave it everything he had. His body ached by the time they made it back to the forest where his treehouse stood, but he wouldn't throw the race. Couldn't throw the race. He was a Rangetsu. Rangetsu men gave everything, even their lives, for their honor. He would not lose this race!

At last, the treehouse came into view, and Rokurou barely had the presence of mind to slow his steps just enough that he wouldn't crash headfirst into the tree and risk destroying all his work. But would Velvet slow down? She had to, her and her weird adoration of skibus wood that everyone seemed to know about besides him. Planting his feet, he skidded just in time to knock gently against the tree trunk with the tip of the cargo on his back…at the exact moment Velvet's blade sank into the wood.

Another draw.

"Why'd you…stab the tree?" he panted to her, using the last of his strength to set down his cargo without tipping it over and dropping the glass.

"Thought it…might give me…an inch," she gasped back. He looked over at her; sure enough, her therion claw was setting down the cauldron of loot. "What kind of…madman…are you? Don't you…get tired?"

"Yeah," he rasped, sinking down onto the ground. "But I…couldn't…throw…the race…" With one last desperate gasp for air, he fell over and passed out, not knowing that Velvet did the same a moment later.


	14. Just These Are Enough

**Minor trigger warning: this chapter contains violence in a sexual context. It's incredibly tame compared to previous chapters, but I want to make sure my bases are covered. Also this chapter is pointless fluff and I apologize; the pointlessness ends with the next chapter.**

* * *

Dreamless sleep was all Velvet needed to recover from her mad bid to beat her hated foe in a race. When her eyes opened, she knew she and Rokurou must have been asleep for a while, because the light in the sky indicated it was dawn.

_Rokurou._ She sat up again and looked over to where he had collapsed. He was still there. Curious, almost hopeful, Velvet stood and walked over to him, checking for signs of life.

He was breathing. Of course.

Still, even through her bottomless hatred, she felt a begrudging respect rise for him. He hadn't had anything to eat, nor had he had any rest, in two days - she had scooped up a couple of small animals that couldn't get out of her way in time during their first race, which wasn't much but was at least something, but he'd had nothing at all. Yet he had run without slowing, there and back, even carrying a huge, unwieldy bed on his back the second time. That took a lot of strength, and a lot of determination; how could she possibly not respect such an achievement? She was almost tempted to give him the win for that alone.

Not that she would. He'd never let her hear the end of it. Besides, he _hadn't_ won, no matter how impressive his performance had been.

And yet…

Velvet's eyes drifted over to her own load, the huge iron pot and all the tools and supplies she'd carried in it. They had the means, after all, and he'd done all that without eating anything…and hadn't he said he missed her cooking?

With a sigh, she went around the big tree the treehouse stood in, looking for the gald he'd mentioned getting for some planks of skibus wood - it had to be a substantial amount, if he'd had several planks to spare. A pile of lumber and a half-empty sack of nails was hiding in the undergrowth, and she rooted around in it until she found his stash. With no remorse, she picked it all up, turned in the direction of town, and started walking.

Let him sleep. No amount of hatred could cause her to dismiss the fact that he'd earned it.

~o~

Rokurou woke to the sound of a bubbling pot.

Opening his eye, midday sunlight nearly blinded him, but he sat up just the same. Blinking, he stood and walked around as the world came into focus, following the noise. Not far from where he'd stashed his building materials, he found Velvet, stirring the huge iron pot she'd carried over a firepit that she must have made herself.

"How long have I been asleep?" Rokurou asked, baffled.

"Almost a whole day," Velvet answered, glancing up at him. "I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up." Her expression hardened. "Are you crazy? You nearly worked yourself to death just carrying that stupid thing!"

"It was a race," Rokurou shrugged, sitting on his lumber pile. "I wasn't going to slow down just because I was tired." Despite the fatigue that still clawed at him, he grinned. "Like I said, the only challenge I ever find anymore is when I go up against you, Velvet. I should thank you for being such a worthy opponent."

"So that's really all you care about," Velvet said, her voice oddly toneless. "Not your own survival, just being able to go all-out against someone else at something."

"I'm a yaksha," he said. "That's what it means."

"Of course." Velvet returned her attention to the food she was making.

"So…you're cooking again," Rokurou noted after a moment. "Do I get some?"

"Yes," she replied.

"I can't wait!" he said eagerly.

"Don't get too excited," Velvet told him. "This is my first time cooking as a daemon in centuries. I can't check to tell if it's any good."

"Come on, Velvet, your food's always good," Rokurou chided.

"You really think so?" she asked, her voice just barely audible over the crackling of the fire and the bubbling of whatever she was cooking.

"Of course!" Rokurou answered emphatically. "I'm sure you haven't lost your touch. What are you making, anyway?"

"Tomato and rappig stew," Velvet answered. "I was surprised to learn that rappigs are still around after all these centuries, but when I found out, I didn't hesitate to buy some."

"Buy?" Rokurou blinked. "You bought food? How?"

"Your gald stash," Velvet smirked.

"Uh…" Rokurou wasn't sure whether to be mad or not - sure, she stole from him, but she also did it so she could cook, and he would have gladly let her have whatever money she wanted to that end if she'd asked. "How'd you find it?" he managed to ask at last.

"You keep all your stuff in that pile you're sitting on," Velvet said simply. "It wasn't hard."

"…Okay," Rokurou said slowly.

"You're not mad?"

"Nah," Rokurou answered. "I don't mind you using my gald if it means I get to taste your cooking again. Besides, you could have had it if you'd asked, but I was asleep so you weren't able to. It's fine."

"Does _nothing_ get on your nerves?" Velvet sighed.

"Did you take my gald just to annoy me?" Rokurou asked in response.

"That was my main reason, yes," she replied simply.

"Oh. Uh…sorry to disappoint you?" he offered.

"No you're not."

There was no answer to this. What was he supposed to say? _Thunk,_ went his soul yet again, and he closed his eyes, fighting down the odd pain.

For a minute, they sat in silence, as Velvet poked at something in the pot with a long fork taken from the cabin she'd found.

"Oh, one more thing you should know," she said suddenly. "When I went into the market and asked about ingredients, the vendor said, 'I haven't seen you before. Are you a seraph?'"

"That's odd," Rokurou said slowly, considering this. "Humans can't see malakhim - _seraphim_ \- anymore, or at least not without a significant amount of resonance, right?"

"You would know better than me," Velvet pointed out.

"Right. Yeah, well…huh. Maybe the vendor you talked to just has a lot of resonance? But then…" He frowned. "If they said they were asking because they hadn't seen you before, that means that they only gained the power to see malakhim recently…"

"If I had to guess, I'd say that now that the rest of Innominat is part of Maotelus, and it was Innominat's power that gave humans the ability to see seraphim, Maotelus can now grant humans that power," Velvet said. Her golden eyes shot an unexpected glare at him. "If that's the case, seraphim can be seen by all humans now, because of what you did."

"Assuming that's really what's going on…is it really such a bad thing?" Rokurou asked, genuinely confused.

"On its own, it's neither good nor bad," Velvet responded. "But if people can see seraphim, that means they can see daemons, too…just like when the Opening happened. Many lives will be ruined because of your actions, human and seraph. But you don't care, do you?" she added spitefully.

"Not…really," Rokurou admitted, frowning at the _thunk_ in his heart. It was more unsettling how easily Velvet was able to keep successfully poking him in that one spot, turning his immunity into a weakness. Centuries had gone by without him noticing his lack of emotion at all; why did Velvet make everything different?

"Food's done," she grunted after a moment, stepping back from her handiwork. "Don't expect it to be too good."

"Are you going to have some?" Rokurou asked, standing up.

"No point," Velvet answered. "I can't taste anything but blood. You know that."

"So…you cooked this just for me?" _Thunk!_

"Don't read too much into it," she told him. "I figured you'd be on the edge of death unless I did something, and then what would I tell Maotelus?"

"I, uh…Thank you," Rokurou said, realizing that those were the appropriate words, as he took one of the bowls she'd stacked up nearby and walked over to the pot.

"Don't thank me," Velvet grumbled. "Just eat."

Realizing that this conversation wouldn't go anywhere, Rokurou wordlessly scooped a ladleful of stew out of the pot and filled his bowl. Velvet turned her back as he reached for one of the utensils she'd also laid out, and he didn't miss the tension in her shoulders, as though she was waiting for an exclamation of disgust. For a moment, he hesitated, wondering if maybe she'd intentionally put something bad in it…but no, if that was the case, she would be watching him eagerly, waiting for him to discover her nasty surprise, wouldn't she? The fact that she seemed nervous meant that she'd really tried with this stew…right?

Shrugging it off, Rokurou scooped up a spoonful of stew, blew on it so he wouldn't injure his tongue, and ate it. Flavor exploded in his mouth, sweet and salty and meaty, a perfect medley of ingredients.

"You can turn around!" he told her, swallowing and working hard to restrain himself from immediately taking another bite.

Hesitantly, Velvet looked over her shoulder at him.

He grinned. "It's good!" he declared. "I knew you hadn't lost your touch. I don't think I've tasted anything this good since before you sealed Innominat away."

"…Oh," she murmured as he eagerly scooped up some more stew. "I…thanks."

"Mm-hmm," he mumbled through his food. Though daemons didn't need food per se, Velvet's meals were always a delight, and he was relieved that that, at least, hadn't changed. "You have to-" _slurp_ "-tell me your secret sometime."

"There isn't one," she said, her voice oddly dispassionate, and he got the sense that she wasn't just talking about her cooking skills.

Rokurou went through five bowls of her stew without slowing down, until he was scraping the bottom of the pot. By now, the fire had died completely, the remaining embers keeping what was left just the right temperature, and if anything, he started eating faster. It wasn't so much that he was hungry anymore as it was that the food was just that good. Meanwhile, Velvet just watched, an unplaceable expression on her face slowly giving way to disgust.

"It's just meat and vegetables!" she finally shouted as he started eating the last dregs directly out of the pot. "Did no one ever teach you table manners?"

"I'm a daemon!" he shouted back, his voice echoing from where his head was deep inside the vat. "I don't need table manners!"

"I was a daemon _lord_, and _I_ have table manners!" she pointed out.

Ignoring this, Rokurou found himself literally licking the inside of the pot, until he was sure there was no stew left.

"Well," he said, setting the empty iron aside, fully aware of the smears of food on his face. "That was _good_. I almost don't even want to wash it down with some sake."

"Key word being 'almost', I take it," Velvet said sarcastically.

"…No," Rokurou answered thoughtfully. "I think I'll wait for the taste to fade on its own before I have a drink."

Velvet made an odd noise, and he knew that this, more than anything, conveyed to her how good her cooking was. Proud of himself for finding the right thing to say, even as his heart went _thunk_ yet again, he grabbed some leaves off the ground and started cleaning himself up.

"There's a stream just through those trees," Velvet informed him, pointing her unbandaged arm to his left.

"I know."

"Then at least have the decency to wash the pot there, even if you won't use it to clean yourself," she told him.

"Nah, you're better at that stuff than I am," Rokurou said, tossing aside the leaves, reasonably satisfied with his cleaning job. "Besides, I still have to get my practice swings in before bed."

"You just woke up!"

"Yeah, but that was because I passed out," Rokurou dismissed; "it's not the same as real sleep."

Shaking her head, Velvet looked up, apparently only just noticing, as he had, that it was just turning to sunset. "Whatever," she grumbled, stalking over and lifting the pot, tossing the bowl and utensils they had used inside. "You get your practice swings in if it's really that important to you."

"Hey, when we're both done…" He gave her a sly smile. "Your food is as delicious as ever, so it wouldn't really be fair of me to not offer you something just as good."

"If you're offering your blood, I won't say no," she said coolly. "Maybe I'll even eat the rest of you this time."

She wouldn't; somehow, Rokurou knew she wouldn't. "Hey, who gets the bed?" he called after her as she walked away with the dirty dishes. "I'll haul it up into the treehouse, but it's not big enough for both of us."

She paused. "Whichever one of us wins, I guess," she replied.

His grin turned feral. Very few things in the world could make him eager to be done with his nightly practice swings, but Velvet, it turned out, was one of them.

Velvet returned with the clean kitchen supplies when Rokurou was about halfway done. As he'd promised, the bed was already up in the treehouse, shoved into a corner; it had crossed his mind to think about maybe expanding the place in the future, as the cabinet and bed together already took up a lot of space. Wordlessly, she climbed into the treehouse, and he only saw her out of the corner of his eye as he stood in the clearing he'd made while gathering lumber. Still, that glimpse was enough to make him almost rush his routine. Yaksha or no, he was still a guy, and eternally young so long as malevolence permeated his being, it seemed. That was another thing to consider: if he wasn't a daemon, he would get old. Not that being old was a bad thing for a swordsman necessarily - as he'd told Velvet, a few Rangetsu men had aged gracefully and still been masters of their craft well past their prime - but…to be eternally young and strong was definitely not a downside of daemonhood.

And yet…

With his ten thousandth swing of his practice sword, Rokurou put an end to the time he could spend pondering the situation. Why did anything have to change? He had everything he wanted, including Velvet. Sure, she made him feel like he was missing something even more than a lack of her had, but…but…

_But what?_ he wondered. _Having her here makes me feel even more broken, but I still feel glad that I brought her back. How does that work?_

_Oh well._

Not bothering to put his tunic back on, Rokurou scaled the ladder and entered his treehouse already half-naked. After all, he didn't want his clothes shredded again - out here, without the potential for people to see them, odds were good that she wouldn't repair any of it a second time.

Then he froze, because Velvet was _entirely_ naked, save for the bandages on her arm.

Even in the dark, her golden eyes gleamed at him, eyeing the still-fading marks on his chest that she'd left a few days ago with something like hunger, and a word for a certain kind of daemon crossed his mind: _succubus_. Monsters who took the form of alluring, beautiful women to draw in young men before devouring them whole. He'd once joked that Velvet was a hag, but succubus described her much better. Though his ability to see things as truly beautiful had left with his human emotions, Velvet still looked…

"Are you just going to stand there?" she taunted.

Rokurou gave himself a small shake. "I thought you could still feel shame," he commented, setting aside his tunic and swords and unbuckling his belt.

"It was worth it this once just to see the look on your face," she smirked. "After all, like you said, you may lack human emotions, but animal emotions can still get the better of you."

"I guess that means I won't be able to get this kind of view again, then," he half-asked, unwilling to take his good eye off her even as he struggled with his garments.

"Not on your life," she growled.

"Well then, excuse me if I take a few minutes to enjoy it," he teased, shedding the last of his own clothing and putting them safely out of harm's way.

"Forgive _me_ if I don't let you," she snapped, and she stalked over to him.

Without any further pretense, their bodies crashed together, even more viciously than even the previous time. A rematch, this time with no ulterior motives, one they were both determined to win.

With two previous experiences under her belt, Velvet might have thought she had an advantage this time, but if she did, she underestimated just how much Rokurou had been looking forward to this. Even as her therion claw burst free in the heat of the moment and gave him some fresh gouges on his back and arms, he dug his own hands and teeth into her with relish. It really was just like fighting, but only with Velvet could it even be half so enjoyable to a yaksha. Somehow, the fact that it was her almost made it better than a fight. The almighty, stone-cold daemon lord, bare against his body, at his mercy as much as he was at hers…Only here, like this, could he feel fulfilled without swinging a sword. The injuries she gave him were nothing; he gave as good as he got. It wasn't love, it was desire, competitiveness…_lust_, a form of malevolence, and not just the traditional form of lust either. He wanted everything, and she was everything.

That thought put him over the edge, naturally at the same moment as her: _she was everything_.

But what did that mean?


	15. Amidst the Raging Winds

With no winner yet again, Rokurou acted the gentleman and let Velvet have the bed for the night. She argued that his blood would stain the wood floor even more irreparably than it would the bedsheets, and he responded that that was exactly the point.

Whatever that meant.

Day came, and with it, the realization that there was no actual objective for either of them to pursue - they had their base, and Velvet had seen enough of the world to know all she needed to know. So, Velvet suggested they just hunt daemons - her for food, Rokurou for practice. He didn't have any better ideas, so that was what they did.

Despite being so far from civilization, there were still a few daemons roaming around old Eastgand, enough for both of them, if only just. Without even thinking about it, they soon found themselves competing, Velvet trying to eat more than Rokurou cut down, and him just as determined to rack up a higher kill count than her. Though nothing they came across put up any real fight, the competition seemed to stimulate Rokurou, at least.

Of course, when night fell and they returned home, their count was even. They fought for the bed in the only way they could as a tiebreaker, but this too came out a draw; with nothing else for it, they decided to take turns with the bed until someone won.

The next day brought the same, and again, they came to a draw; Rokurou had one kill up on Velvet for a while, but she scrounged the forest until she found one daemon to drag back to him and eat right in front of him - it was better than letting him win, at least. Yet another day yielded similar results, as did the next. Sometimes it would seem like one was about to win, but they were both so determined not to be the first to lose that they kept finding ways to tie, though there were never enough daemons for one of them to come out on top, and their bedtime fights never changed. In a way, Velvet enjoyed the stalemates, as they seemed to drive Rokurou crazy. It all became a routine, if nothing else, and Velvet found herself almost settling into it. Rarely did they speak to each other, so when Rokurou spoke up one morning after it had been two weeks, interrupting the ritual, Velvet was startled.

"Velvet?"

"What?" she asked coldly, turning on him.

"Do you mind if we stop by Ladylake today?" he asked.

"Why would we do that?" she demanded. "If you want me to cook for you again-"

"I do, but it's not that." Incredibly, he smirked. "The truth is, I'm out of supplies, and I need to buy some gels, or our next fight is going to kill me," he told her. "You're merciless with that claw of yours."

Velvet felt her cheeks get hot, and she looked away. "Why should I care if you die?" she spat.

"Well, if I die, you won't have ever managed to beat me at anything, except by default, which is a pretty lame way to win," Rokurou shrugged. "Plus, all your hard work not eating me will have gone to waste."

"H-Hard work?!" Velvet stammered, hating her cheeks for flushing even deeper. "What makes you say that?"

Rokurou blinked. "Come on, Velvet, I've seen you eat an exorcist's soul with a single swipe of those talons," he said. "If you wanted to eat me, you've had about fifty chances to do so. You haven't taken any of them."

"I…I don't want to let Phi down," she said, crossing her arms. "That's all."

"Well, you'll let him down if I don't get some gels," Rokurou pointed out. "So…can we go to Ladylake?"

"_You_ can go to Ladylake," she grumbled. "I'm not sure why _I_ have to come along."

"Well, while we're there, you can get whatever ingredients you need for your recipes," Rokurou grinned. "Wild meat and wild herbs are all fine and good, but…"

"_Rokurou_."

"Can we at least get some salt?" he pleaded. "Please? We have a house, we might as well eat better than savages…"

"It's your gald, since you're the one who found skibus wood to sell; you can get what you want," Velvet stated. "Why do _I_ have to come with you?"

Rokurou sighed, and that was answer enough.

"You and your damned honor," she growled. "Fine. I'll come. But we'd better not stay too long."

"You're so paranoid about this whole daemonblight thing," Rokurou commented as he grabbed his gald stash before taking the lead, heading south to get around to the side of the lake where the bridge into town stood. "If we didn't cause anything to turn in Marlind weeks ago, we're not going to do any damage just going shopping."

"Don't remind me of that!" Velvet snapped, begrudgingly following him all the same.

"It's nothing we haven't done since-"

"Rokurou!" It didn't matter that he was right, or that he apparently had far more situational awareness than she'd given him credit for; she was embarrassed and she hated him, and that was more than reason enough to argue.

"Fine, sheesh," he brushed off, making her hate him even more.

_If I don't give anyone daemonblight while we're in Ladylake, it'll be a miracle._

~o~

When they arrived in town around midday, foot traffic was mercifully light, though Velvet couldn't stop glancing around, waiting for some sign of her malevolence infecting someone nearby. It had been like this when she'd gone into town two weeks earlier, too; she had decided that she didn't want to repeat the experience, and yet here she was, all because Rokurou needed to honor his debt. _And because I have no intention of letting his wounds heal normally,_ she admitted to herself, _but his honor is the only reason I have to be here now._

_His fault. All his fault._

Wincing at the surge of hatred that could easily overwhelm a human, Velvet ducked around a corner and took a few deep breaths.

"Would you stop worrying?" Rokurou demanded, joining her. "Seriously, daemonblight isn't nearly as easy to catch as it used to be."

"I was the Lord of Calamity," Velvet reminded him, trying to put a cap on her hatred, just for the moment. "Isn't the Lord of Calamity the one who spreads daemonblight?"

"Yeah…Hey, where'd you hear that?" Rokurou asked, confused. "I mean, it's true, but…"

"Never mind," Velvet said firmly, deciding not to admit she'd learned it in a dream of all places. "The point is, it's not safe for me to be here. I wish you would just go out on your own; you run a greater risk of breaking your oath by dragging me here than you do by taking your eyes off me for a few hours to leave me at the treehouse."

"Sorey told me to keep an eye on you," Rokurou stated, "so that's what I'm going to do."

"What's the _real_ reason?" Velvet demanded. "I'm starting to think this is just an excuse."

"Well, we _could_ stand here in the middle of town and talk about it, or we could go buy what we need so we can go home sooner," Rokurou smirked. "Your choice."

"I hate you." Shooting him a death-glare for good measure, Velvet stepped back out onto the main street and headed for the market.

As it turned out, the marketplace didn't have gels at all; only one store in town sold them, and even then, they only sold apple gels. Rokurou stuffed his face with five, then bought another full pack of them.

"Why don't you have anything stronger?" Velvet asked the vendor.

"We never needed them before," the storekeeper replied. "We started stocking peach gels and grape gels a couple of weeks ago when the calamity started, but those sold out in a matter of days. They're too expensive to import without good cause, so we didn't order too many at once, and it takes a long time for new shipments to come in; there's no telling when we'll be back in stock."

_Calamity?_ Velvet thought as Rokurou packed up his purchase, but she decided to let it go. "Right, let's go home," she said.

"Not yet," Rokurou told her. "First, we're buying supplies at the market so you can cook some more."

"We were just _at_ the market!" Velvet exclaimed. "Why didn't we buy food then?!"

"Because gels were more important," Rokurou replied. "I wasn't sure how much gald we'd have left."

"We have _plenty_ of gald, you idiot-!"

"Well, look who it is!"

The unexpected voice cut through their budding argument, and they both turned to see a shirtless seraph grinning at them. His hair came down to his waist, and was tinted green at the ends; white tattoos crossed his tanned chest in wavy patterns, and a black hat was perched atop his head at a roguish angle.

"Hey there," he greeted, stepping closer. "Long time no see! How have you two been?"

"Do we know you?" Velvet asked.

"Oh, come on," the seraph exclaimed with clearly-feigned indignation. "I know it's been a long time, but I wouldn't expect you'd forget me so easily. I remember both of you, after all."

"Yeah, sorry, I'm drawing a blank," Rokurou shrugged.

Velvet stared at the seraph thoughtfully. His hair was much longer, and the lack of any sort of shirt or jacket was a bit jarring, but… "Are you…Zaveid?" she asked.

"Hey, the lady remembers!" Zaveid said brightly. "Guess I made a good impression."

"Oh. Oh, hey!" Rokurou exclaimed, brightening up himself. "Good to see you again, Zaveid. I hear I've missed you every time I've come into town before."

"Sort of." Zaveid's grin twisted strangely. "Now that introductions are out of the way…Rokurou, I've got a present for you from a mutual friend of ours."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

Without any further explanation, Zaveid walked right up to Rokurou, balled his fist, and punched the daemon swordsman in the stomach as hard as he could.

"_Agh_!" Rokurou grunted, doubling over. "What the hell?!"

"You _idiot_," Zaveid growled at him. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Velvet chuckled. "I'm _very_ glad we ran into you, Zaveid," she remarked.

"Seriously, what was that for?" Rokurou groaned, straightening up, one hand still over where he'd been slugged.

"From Eizen to you," Zaveid told him. "That's exactly what he'd do if he was here." The wind seraph shook his head. "Honestly, I can't believe you went and _followed_ that lead. I _told_ you not to release her, that Innominat was dangerous…"

"What? You didn't tell me that!" Rokurou exclaimed. "_Eizen_ told me that!"

"Eizen's dead," Zaveid said.

"Yeah, Edna kept saying that, but-"

"Wait, he _told you_ not to try to release me?" Velvet demanded, turning on Rokurou. "Why the hell didn't you listen?! Don't you ever _think_?!"

"I knew Maotelus could clean up what was left of Innominat," Rokurou said defensively before turning back to Zaveid. "And _Eizen_ told me not to do it, you weren't there! You have some explaining to do!"

"You _both_ have some explaining to do!" Velvet snapped.

Zaveid sighed heavily. "Velvet's right," he said, and he turned around, still looking at them from over his shoulder. "Come on, let's talk over a few drinks at the inn. My treat."

"How are you going to pay for the drinks?" Rokurou asked.

"With gald, of course!" Zaveid replied. "How else?"

"But humans can't see malakhim," Rokurou pointed out.

The wind seraph turned back around to stare at Rokurou incredulously. "You mean you don't know?" he asked.

"I think _I_ know," Velvet commented, "but you'll have to forgive Rokurou for being slow to catch on. He can be an idiot sometimes…_all_ the time, in fact."

"Yeah, I'll say," Zaveid muttered, turning around once more and walking for the town's inn, clearly expecting them to follow.

Despite her misgivings about staying in town, Velvet couldn't resist the chance to talk to someone she actually knew who wasn't Rokurou, and she walked after him readily. Rokurou, of course, followed her, not willing to let her out of his sight, and soon, they were seated in the dining room of a mostly-empty tavern.

"What can I get for you three?" asked a waitress, and Rokurou did a double take.

"Bottle of whiskey for me, if you have it," Zaveid said, tossing the girl a smile that was just a little unsettling.

"Of course, sir!" she chirped.

"Uh…I don't suppose you carry sake?" Rokurou asked.

"I'll check with the bartender," the young woman told him, "but I think we do. It's an unusual choice, though…And you, miss?"

"I'll pass," Velvet answered, crossing her arms.

"Oh come on, Velvet!" Rokurou chided, "live a little! You're technically-" He glanced at the waitress. "-uh…old enough, now."

"The legal drinking age was only ever an excuse," Velvet snapped. "I'm not interested in drinking. You can go," she told the waitress.

Flustered, the young woman nodded and ran off.

"I have plenty of gald to spare," Zaveid told Velvet. "You don't have to worry about paying me back." His tone set her teeth on edge.

"No," she said firmly. "I wouldn't be able to taste it anyway; I can't taste anything besides blood."

"Well, that's even better!" Zaveid exclaimed.

"Huh?" Velvet asked, baffled. "How so?"

"Alcohol is definitely an acquired taste," Rokurou agreed. "But since you can't taste it, you can enjoy all the benefits without having to adjust!"

"Benefits?" Velvet repeated. "You mean impaired judgment, loss of coordination, and the inability to walk, talk, or think clearly? Those benefits?"

"Well…yeah…"

"I'll pass," she repeated icily. "I prefer to keep my head clear."

"Eh, suit yourself," Zaveid shrugged as the waitress came back with a bottle, a jug, a small glass, and a small dish that Velvet remembered seeing Shigure use.

"Your orders, sirs," she said with a smile, placing the glass items in front of Zaveid and the ceramic dishes in front of Rokurou.

"Oh hey, you even have the right cup!" Rokurou exclaimed. "Thank you!"

"Care to join us, sweetheart?" Zaveid asked her with a naughty smile.

"Oh no, I-I couldn't possibly!" the waitress stammered, her cheeks flushing. "My boss would be furious, and I…well, I couldn't possibly sit with a seraph!"

"Aw, don't be like that, babe," Zaveid told her. "Us seraphim are people too!"

"We have things we came here to talk about," Velvet reminded him. "Things that are none of her business."

"True," Zaveid conceded, and he shot the girl another smile. "Maybe another time. I'll keep an eye out for ya next time I'm in town."

Whoever the waitress was, Velvet actually felt a bit sorry for her; she looked like she might break down in tears at any moment. Unable to even manage another word, she hurried away.

"I think you laid it on a little thick," Rokurou remarked to Zaveid.

"Nonsense!" Zaveid protested. "Every woman craves attention!"

_How could anyone have less situational awareness than Rokurou?_ Velvet wondered. _I swear, he wasn't this stupid fifteen hundred years ago…How is it that both of the people left in this world from my old life are complete idiots?!_

"Well, now that that's taken care of…" Zaveid poured some of his drink into the tiny glass, then downed it in one gulp, as Rokurou did the same with his sake and cup. "…it's time you knew the score."

"How do you know about my conversation with Eizen?" Rokurou prompted.

Zaveid gave a heavy sigh, and took another shot of his drink before replying, "Because that wasn't really Eizen."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was Eizen," Rokurou said, drinking more sake. "It may have been centuries, but I know what Eizen looks like."

"Me too," Zaveid said, and he shook his head. "Alright, let me back up. Long story short, a few hundred years ago, I worked with Shepherd Sorey to take down his era's Lord of Calamity. Along the way, we ran into this seraph chick who could use illusory artes."

"I didn't know seraphim could cast those," Velvet mused.

"We can't, normally," Zaveid admitted, downing another mouthful of his whiskey. "But after we fought her a few times, our little group figured out that she got the power to cast them from an oath she took to never kill."

"And that would be an easy oath for you, considering that's what you do anyway," Velvet remarked.

"Well…" Another shot. "Not since…you know. But working with ol' Sheps and wielding the power of purification reminded me what it was like to not kill. Plus, when Sorey sealed himself away with Maotelus, he went and took Sigfried with him! So I decided to get myself a new power and try it out. Even after Rose retired and I left the Shepherd business, I still used illusions to keep hellions from causing trouble, even put them in the path of a Shepherd or Squire if I could manage it. And then…" His reddish-brown eyes turned on Rokurou. "One day in Lastonbell, I saw you. You might look different, but your swords are pretty unique; I had a feeling you were Eizen's old comrade. I could also tell you were a hellion, but out of respect for an old friend, I decided to make sure you weren't yourself anymore before setting the nearest Squire on you."

"So you cast an illusory arte of Eizen," Velvet finished, "to see if Rokurou recognized him."

"Guilty as charged," Zaveid confirmed, downing more whiskey. "Gotta say, I didn't expect you to actually recognize him. Holding a whole conversation through an illusory arte ain't easy, you know."

"So…so that wasn't Eizen," Rokurou said slowly - not as though he didn't understand, but more like he didn't want to accept it.

"'Fraid not," Zaveid said. "Eizen died a couple years before I saw ya." He shook his head again. "But damn it, illusion or not, I _told you_ not to go after her! You could have destroyed the whole world! You damn near did!"

"But Maotelus consumed Innominat," Rokurou pointed out.

"Yeah, and that's exactly the problem," Zaveid snapped.

"What happened to Maotelus?" Velvet asked. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, he's fine," Zaveid all but grumbled. "Better than fine, even. It took him a week to adjust to the power he got from consuming Innominat, but once he did, he couldn't _prevent_ the spread of resonance across the world. In a day, every human could see both hellions _and_ seraphim." He sighed. "It was chaos. Can you imagine what happened when all the humans in the world woke up only to find that their mother or father, sister or brother, daughter or son was suddenly a hideous monster, even though they acted the same as they always had? Hell, I had to reenact my Sub Lord pact with Lailah and travel to the far corners of the continent just to keep the outlying settlements from completely self-destructing!"

"Well, I didn't expect _that_ to happen," Rokurou said, nonplussed, as he took another swig of his own drink.

"Are you serious?!" Zaveid exclaimed. "Chaos nearly consumed the world, and you don't care?!"

"Rokurou doesn't care about anything," Velvet informed him. "When he became a daemon, he lost the capacity for most human emotions. That much, at least, isn't _entirely_ his fault."

"In my defense, you didn't say that it would be dangerous for Maotelus to _consume_ Innominat," Rokurou went on, as though neither of his companions had spoken. "You just said Innominat was dangerous. I knew that, but I figured Maotelus could handle him. And for the record, I was right."

"Even as far as that goes, you got lucky," Velvet pointed out. "Innominat could easily have decided to fight back. I have no idea why he didn't."

"So he really didn't put up a fight?" Zaveid questioned, eyeing Velvet curiously. "Sorey mentioned as much, but I didn't believe it…"

"No, he didn't fight," Velvet confirmed. "He…he gave himself up willingly." _And took my brother with him._ "But there was no way Rokurou could have known that would happen."

"I don't question things," Rokurou stated, pouring himself another drink. "I just do. It's all part of the Rangetsu style."

"No, Rokurou, I'm pretty sure it's just part of being an idiot," Velvet sighed.

"Well, at any rate, that's my story done," Zaveid said. "Rokurou, I believe the lady was waiting for an explanation from you as well?"

"Yeah, I was," Velvet scowled. "Exactly what did this illusion of Eizen say that led you to rip me out of the earthpulse?"

"He said he knew someone who could help me," Rokurou shrugged, focused on his jug of sake.

"And?"

"And…that Innominat was dangerous and it was a bad idea."

"_And_?"

"And nothing!" Rokurou exclaimed. "That's really all he said."

"That _is_ all I said," Zaveid informed her, "really and truly."

"Then how the hell did you end up finding me?" Velvet demanded.

"Well, I figured, how many people could possibly know Eizen?" Rokurou replied, as though his train of thought was entirely reasonable. "So I started asking."

"Asking?" Velvet repeated. "You mean you just wandered around, asking people if they knew Eizen?"

"Well…yeah," Rokurou shrugged, chugging another gulp of sake. "I mean, why not? Worst case, they'd say no."

"_Rokurou_…" Velvet massaged her temples. "Every time I think I've figured out the depths of your stupidity, you go and uncover another layer."

"Oh come on, how was that stupid?" Rokurou protested. "Eizen said he knew someone who could help, there are only so many people in the world, and since he was a malak, if I found someone who knew him, they'd probably be the right person! What's so unreasonable about that?"

"It's _reasonable_," Velvet admitted through gritted teeth, "in the sense that the things Artorius did were _reasonable_. It's not all about _reason_."

"Don't go comparing me to Artorius," Rokurou said calmly. "There was nothing to lose by occasionally asking around to see if anyone knew Eizen, no downside, and I had all the time in the world. Though I'll admit that I didn't expect to get results so quickly - it only took about a year before I ran into Rose and her group."

"Still can't believe that happened," Zaveid remarked. "Uno and I were polishing off a drink right here in this tavern when the girls went after you. If I'd been there, things would've been different…"

"I don't see how so," Rokurou told him; "when I found out that the Rangetsu style was the signature fighting style of a band of assassins, I got so mad that my malevolence made Lailah and Edna disappear."

"I would have stopped them from going after you in the first place!" Zaveid snapped. "And don't remind me how that nearly got Rose killed!"

"How about you two stop arguing about things I know nothing about?" Velvet suggested coldly. She turned on Rokurou. "Tell me the whole story. I'm curious to find out if there are any other acts of idiocy to this whole mess that I wasn't aware of."

Grinning, as though he'd been waiting all month for Velvet to ask this, Rokurou retold the whole tale, only ever pausing to drink more sake. Zaveid sat back and kept drinking, while Velvet kept her face passive, even at the part when Rokurou insisted Maotelus take him to the seal even though the Empyrian's power hadn't been sufficient to break it; though it was a series of absurd events, none were quite as ridiculous as what had started the whole thing.

"Let me see if I understand this right," she sighed when he was done; "your used your swords to break apart a seal that the leader of the Empyrians couldn't make a dent in."

"Yeah."

"And yet you still don't think you'd be strong enough to defeat Shigure in a fair fight?"

"Well…" Rokurou frowned, as though this had never occurred to him. "Brute force is only half of strength," he said slowly after a minute, "and I'm pretty confident in my brute force. It's technique that I'm missing."

"You are impossible," Velvet grumbled. "Never mind the fact that you only spared Rose's life because she's basically a younger generation of your family, or the fact that you happened to bring someone who wanted to see a Mana Wheel with you. I can't believe you don't realize how ridiculous your story is."

"Doesn't matter if it's ridiculous or not; it's true," Rokurou shrugged, swallowing more of his drink. "That's all there is to it. Now…" He aimed a smirk at her that she didn't like the look of at all. "Zaveid's told his story, and I've told mine. While we're here, why not tell us yours?"

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"Word on the street is that you're mad about being broken free from Innominat's grip," Zaveid said, speaking up for the first time in a while. "Maotelus himself had to command you not to kill Rokurou for it. So what's the deal? Anyone would think you'd be happy to be free."

"I didn't know I was in Innominat's grip," Velvet said. "Within the seal, he and I lived out a dream life, where the Opening never happened, and my brother's illness went away." She shot a glare at Rokurou. "You already knew that."

"Yeah, but I want to hear the details," Rokurou pressed. "Again, I just told you mine. So go on, Velvet, tell us all about what I ruined for you."

"The floor's all yours, babe," Zaveid concurred. "Shame you don't have a drink to go with it, but come on, it's only fair."

Velvet opened her mouth to refuse, but was suddenly gripped by an urge to talk about what she'd lost, to relive it all, so these two would fully understand what living in this world meant. Unsure why it even mattered, she found herself talking without ever deciding she would.

"I woke up in my bed in Aball, the morning before the Opening happened in real life," she began. "I wasn't aware of anything but an odd sense of dread, like I'd had a nightmare. But nothing happened, and within a day, I was living my life…"

Everything came pouring out after that, memories of her dream world flooding back to her as she recited them: her nephew's birth, her brother's recovery, her best friend's inheritance of the family quiche recipe. She retold how Laphicet had all but dragged her to Taliesin once a week or so once he was feeling better, and how she'd happened to run into all her comrades who came and went from the port city. Her nephew's name had been Chifi, she remembered it even as she spoke; all of it came back, and she recited it as it came, leaving out only the part where she'd started to think fondly of Rokurou towards the end - that wasn't something he needed to know. She _did_ mention her first kiss with Niko at age thirteen, carefully timed to coincide with Rokurou taking a drink of his sake, to very satisfying results. Twelve years of a perfect life passed behind her eyes as she relived it all, and then…

"Chifi collected bugs all over Eastgand for months before springing the fishing trip on me," she remembered. "He was determined that we were going to find the best fishing spot in the Tranquil Woods and fish until we caught the king of the stream. I went to bed knowing he would wake me up as soon as the sun rose. And then-" All at once, she cut off, as she remembered one last thing, the memory she had deliberately forgotten, the one she couldn't admit to anyone, not even herself. Praying that her audience mistook her hesitation for the pain of recalling the end of her dream, she concluded, "And then I woke up deep within the earth, with Rokurou standing over me." As she blinked the vision away, she saw both men staring at her in shock, and she shot Rokurou an extra death-glare for good measure. "You know the rest."

Stunned silence ruled the table for a minute. Velvet looked around, and realized she'd talked long enough for a new rush hour to swamp the inn; all the other tables were full of talking, eating, laughing people. _Real people…_

"_Damn_," Zaveid sighed at last, "that's rough. I…I owe you an apology, Velvet. Sword-boy here wouldn't have been able to break you out if not for me, it's as much my doing as his."

"You couldn't possibly have known he'd take such a vague lead and run with it," Velvet dismissed. "The fact that you just happened to run into the world's biggest idiot wasn't your fault. I don't blame you." She scowled. "I only blame Rokurou."

"A Lord of Calamity who forgives," Zaveid murmured. "Will wonders never cease…?"

"Yeah, Velvet's not like other Lords of Calamity." Abruptly, Rokurou stood, grabbing his half-empty jug of sake. "Well, I have some errands to run. Zaveid, can you keep Velvet company while I run to the market?"

"Er…" Zaveid blinked.

"Rokurou," Velvet began.

"It was nice catching up with you, Zaveid," Rokurou said, dropping some gald on the table, presumably because he was taking the whole jug. "We should drink together again sometime. See you around."

And with that, that daemon swordsman left, almost hurrying for the door.

Zaveid gave Velvet an odd look. "Thought you said he couldn't feel human emotions," he remarked.

"He can't," Velvet shrugged. "I don't know what his problem is. He doesn't feel bad for destroying my peace, I can tell you that much."

"Destroying your peace…" Zaveid sighed again, then poured more whiskey into his glass and set it in front of her. "Here," he grunted, "have some."

"I told you, I'm not interested," she growled.

"It'll take the edge off," he told her, "and you deserve some relief as much as the next world-weary soul. Go on, drink up."

"So that's the appeal, huh…?" she mused. It _did_ sound appealing, she couldn't really deny that. Glancing around quickly to make sure Rokurou wasn't spying on her from a corner or out a window - he would never let her live this down if he found out - she picked up the glass hesitantly. Once she was confident that he wouldn't see her, she tried to imitate the motion Zaveid had been making the whole time, tossing the mouthful of liquid to the back of her throat in one swing.

There was no taste, but before she could swallow, a powerful burning sensation caused her to choke and gag, coughing on what felt like toxic fumes.

"Whoa, hey, you alright?" Zaveid asked as she spluttered, spraying the vile substance everywhere. "I thought you couldn't taste!"

"I _can't_," she managed in a raw voice, "but is it supposed to _feel_ like I'm drinking liquid fire?!"

"Huh…Now that you mention it, I guess that doesn't really have anything to do with the taste," Zaveid mused. "Never really thought about that before…"

Velvet kept hacking and spitting, trying to clear her throat of the alcohol and the noxious cloud it seemed to produce on the back of her tongue.

"Sorry," Zaveid said, taking his glass back. "Really, that never occurred to me."

"It's fine," she choked. "I'm fine. But I don't understand why anyone would drink that stuff…"

"Like Rokurou said, it's an acquired taste," Zaveid told her. "Er…acquired _experience_, I guess. It takes some getting used to. But when life gets you down, nothing's as quick or easy a fix as a good drink."

"I can't imagine anything of that nature would be _good_," Velvet rasped, though she'd managed to stop choking.

Zaveid just shrugged and downed some more of the horrible concoction.

Silence stretched between them for a minute.

"So…" Zaveid finally said slowly. "What have you and Rokurou been up to that you didn't know about the calamity he caused?"

"Staying out of society as much as we can," Velvet replied. "We're staying in old Eastgand, far away from any settlement. Rokurou actually built a treehouse." She scowled. "By himself. Out of skibus wood."

"Skibus wood?" Zaveid remarked, taking another shot. "Damn. Some guys have all the luck."

"He didn't even _know_ it was skibus wood, that's the incredible part," Velvet moaned. "All he knew was that it was hard wood. He went and sold the spare planks he cut!"

"So you're living together, then?" Zaveid asked.

"We might as well," Velvet sighed. "I can't be around people or I'd spread malevolence, and Rokurou can't leave me alone because Sorey commanded him to keep an eye on me and he owes the Shepherd a debt."

"You don't sound too happy."

"I hate him," Velvet said flatly.

"The hatred of the Lord of Calamity is a dangerous thing for a man to live with," Zaveid commented. "How have you not killed him yet?"

There was no way the wind seraph could have known, but Velvet couldn't fight down the blush that crept into her cheeks. "We…keep ourselves occupied," she managed.

Zaveid eyed her. "You can't mean what I think you mean," he said slowly. "Not the way you talked about your girlfriend in your dream life…"

"Are you saying that just because I find women attractive, I can't think the same about men?" Velvet snarled, offended.

"Well, no, but…" He blinked, and then his face split into a massive grin. "Oh ho?! So that _is _what you two get up to!"

"I…er…" Velvet ducked her burning face to her chest.

"A lady who swings both ways," he went on, winking at her. "I like it."

"It's…it's not…I hate him!" she stammered. "I hate him! This is the only way I get to taste his blood!"

"Uh-huh." The seraph's smirk was sickening. "His _blood_, huh?"

"_Yes_," she hissed, furious that he would think she would do anything that wasn't entirely self-serving, especially where Rokurou was concerned. "I _hate_ him!"

"Ah, but isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?" he asked in a grandiose voice that, of all people, reminded her of Magilou.

His teasing tone told her he hadn't guessed the truth, but the words hit far too close to home. Not just as far as Rokurou went, but also Artorius, and her brother… "Not always," she growled.

"Well," he sighed, "I sure am envious of him. Why can't I ever get lucky with a girl who hates my guts?"

There were several possible responses to this, but Velvet thought over her next words carefully, determined to make him as uncomfortable as he had made her. It took a few seconds, but suddenly she realized exactly what to say, and she raised her head to smirk at him. "Speaking of hating your guts," she said, "have you told Edna that you've been parading her brother's likeness around?"

Gratifyingly, Zaveid winced. "No," he admitted, taking another drink. "I couldn't."

"That's horrible of you," Velvet told him. "Rokurou has repeatedly mentioned to her that he saw her brother with his own eyes long after he was dead. You're really letting that false hope sit with her, keep her awake at night?"

"Look, Edna's a smart lady, she knows Eizen's dead," Zaveid said defensively. "She probably just figures that seraph chick was messing with Rokurou…"

"Even so, I watched my brother get murdered right in front of my eyes, too," Velvet said coldly, folding her arms; "if someone I knew for a fact knew him told me that they'd seen him years later, even if I knew it wasn't possible, I wouldn't be able to rest until I found out what that person had actually seen. And you've kept this from Edna for, what, five hundred years?" She waved her bandaged hand. "And I thought I was cruel."

"What am I supposed to tell her?" he asked, his manner subdued.

"The truth is a good place to start," Velvet replied.

"She'll be furious." Was that a hint of fear in his voice?

"Most likely," Velvet agreed, "but that's your problem, not mine. You're the one who decided to cast that arte in the first place. Now you have to deal with the consequences, just like everyone else in the world."

"And what if she asks me to conjure Eizen's likeness again, so she can see him one more time?" Zaveid demanded. "What do I do then?"

"You do whatever you think is right," Velvet answered. "Again, it's not my problem. But if you care about her even a little bit, you'll stop hiding this from her. No doubt it's been tormenting her ever since Rokurou first ran into her five hundred years ago."

He didn't argue, which was a start, Velvet supposed. Instead, he took a long, slow drink, then sighed and said, "You don't really seem like the Lord of Calamity to me."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Velvet asked icily.

"Well, it's clear you care about Edna, and you've seen her, what, maybe once?" Zaveid commented. "Hell, most humans don't care about someone that quickly. Hard to believe you couldn't be purified."

At this last, sentence, Velvet gasped. "W-What do you mean?" she stammered in surprise.

"There are only two sorts of times I've seen purification fail," Zaveid said: "people who refuse to let go of their malevolence - for whatever reason - and dragons. You don't seem like the type to hold on to malevolence."

"You know nothing about me," Velvet said in a low voice.

"I'll admit, I don't know too much," Zaveid conceded, "but you seem like you have more of a heart than plenty of humans I've seen who were completely curable."

"A heart full of hatred, maybe," she countered.

Zaveid's red-brown eyes met her gaze steadily, more serious than she'd seen them all day, reminding her that, pervy jokester or not, he was hundreds if not thousands of years old.

"…So that's the answer, then?" she asked at last, her tone cynical. "I just let go of all the hatred in my heart, and everything I've ever done and been willing to do to achieve my own selfish goals is just forgiven and forgotten?"

"The world forgave and forgot ages ago, babe," Zaveid said, and she couldn't help but flinch. "The only one still holding it all against you is you. Maotelus himself thinks you're an angel."

"He said that?" she breathed.

"Well, not in so few words," Zaveid shrugged, "but ever since he woke up, he's done nothing but tell Sheps and the gang how wonderful you are, all the good deeds you did."

"What good deeds?" Velvet scoffed. "I was the Lord of Calamity for a reason!"

"Rescuing him and giving him a name, helping Eleanor find her own answers in life, taking care of everyone's wounds, making the group meals fit for royalty, cleaning a room at an inn that the staff was too busy to clean…The part where you gave up both your life and your death just so he and the other therions could live is one of his favorite tales," Zaveid informed her. "And the kid always has stars in his eyes when he talks about you."

"Why would he tell you all this?" Velvet asked.

"At first, I think he was worried Sorey and the others still had concerns about letting you live," Zaveid answered. "He shouldn't be anymore, we get the point by now, but that's why he started talking at least. Now I get the feeling he just loves talking about you. You're practically his idol."

"So the leader of the Empyrians looks up to the Lord of Calamity," Velvet huffed. "What a joke."

"See, that's what I thought," Zaveid said, "but now, talking to you, I'm starting to think it's not all just talk. You're something different, Velvet. Something special." Incredibly, he didn't wink at her this time, instead keeping a perfectly straight face.

"Whatever," Velvet grumbled, standing up. "I've wasted enough time here; I should go make sure Rokurou hasn't fallen off a building or something."

"Nice talking to ya, gorgeous," Zaveid smirked, toasting her with his last cup of whiskey. "Hope we get to chat again sometime."

"It was…nice to see you again too, Zaveid," Velvet admitted. "Take care. And don't forget to tell Edna the truth," she added sharply.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, glaring at his empty bottle.

He waved, and she walked away. Outside, she barely had two seconds to wonder whether she should try to find Rokurou or just head back to the treehouse when the daemon swordsman appeared right next to her.

"Oh hey, Velvet," he said brightly. "Something wrong?"

"I was just coming to find you," she grumbled. Then she did a double-take, because Rokurou had a huge bundle slung over one shoulder in a cloth sack almost as big as he was. "What on earth-? What have you been doing, Rokurou?"

"Shopping," he replied nonchalantly. "Got some food, some drinks, some other stuff…we should be set for a while."

"As long as that means we can leave, I won't question it," Velvet sighed.

"Yeah, we're good to go. You ready?" he asked.

"_Please_," she groaned.

Above them, the sun had almost completely finished setting, as finally, _finally_, they left the town. Still, as they headed back into the woods where they'd made their home, Velvet found herself glad to have come. Talking with Zaveid, with someone from a time she knew who wasn't Rokurou, had left her feeling light, as though she'd been carrying several bags of rocks and had finally set some of them down. Only saying something to upset Rokurou could possibly make her feel any better.

So she did.

"Hey Rokurou, Zaveid said something you should probably know about if you're ever going to repay your debt to Sorey," she shot over her shoulder.

"Oh really?" he asked; his tone was casual, but she knew him well enough to hear the undercurrent of borderline desperation. "What's that?"

Smirking, Velvet shared Zaveid's insight into what made a daemon incurable. Rokurou's only response was a soft grunt of acknowledgement, and then they walked in silence for an hour. Velvet waited, praying for some response, but it didn't come.

"You understand what that means?" she asked at last. "The only reason you can't repay your debt is because you aren't willing. It's your own fault."

"No, I heard you," Rokurou assured her, his tone unreadable.

More silence, as night finished falling. _Maybe I've piled too many revelations on him in one day, lack of emotions or no, _Velvet found herself thinking.

Then they reached the treehouse, and Rokurou set down his pack in the clearing, his eyes fixed pensively on the treehouse. "You know…" he said slowly, "…the treehouse could use another room."

All at once, Velvet's mind snapped, a torrent of hatred rushing through her being and wiping away all thought and reason. "_ARE YOU SERIOUS_?!" she roared at the top of her lungs, turning on him and brandishing both her therion claw and her gauntlet blade. "_After everything I've told you today, all you can think about is your damn treehouse_?!"

"Velvet, calm down," he said, his hands up in a placating gesture that only fueled the flames of her rage even more. "It's not-Wait! Velvet, wait!"

The only way she could avoid killing Rokurou and upsetting Maotelus was to walk away, so Velvet started stomping away, not knowing or caring where she was going. Rokurou's cries fell on deaf ears, but when he darted forward to physically block her path, she couldn't continue to ignore him.

"Move," she growled.

"I can't let you walk away, Velvet," Rokurou said firmly. "I have to keep an eye on you-"

Just in time to block her claw, he drew his sword, catching her before she could scoop him up and devour him whole. "Get. Out. Of my way," she snarled. "Move, Rokurou. _Now_!"

"I can't do that."

"_Let me go_!" she shouted. "I swear, if you don't get out of my way right now, I will dedicate the rest of my existence to spreading malevolence across the land! I will become the Lord of Calamity again at any cost, and the only way you'll be able to stop me is if you kill me! Either way, your debt will never be repaid, your oath will be broken! I swear this to you on my sister's grave, Rokurou!"

"And if I do move?" he asked.

"Then I'll…" Velvet's jaw clenched. "I'll…contain myself," she managed to grind out through gritted teeth. "I swear that too. But you have five seconds to get out of my way."

"Okay." And just like that, he stepped aside to let her pass.

Rage flared again, fury that he wouldn't even give her the excuse, but she stormed away before she did something Maotelus would make her regret.


	16. The Life You'll Only Live Once

_Hate, hate, hate,_ chanted Velvet's heartbeat as she stomped through the forest, not knowing or caring what direction she was going as long as it was far away from Rokurou. Everything she'd said, everything he'd learned, and all that mattered was expanding his treehouse? Even without emotions, how could anyone be that oblivious, that stupid, that useless?! Wrath poured through her body, and though she halfheartedly tried not to spill it all over the earth around her, a fair number of daemons sprang up from where she walked, though she was quick to snap them up. The knowledge that she was probably hurting Maotelus wasn't enough to quell her rage.

It took hours for the flames of her anger to start to burn her out, leaving her hollow and exhausted. By the time she tired, she had emerged from the forests of old Eastgand and was among the grassy hills to the west. Realizing she'd strayed, she made for the largest tree she could see and climbed as high as she could go, hoping it would be enough to prevent any disasters while she rested. Nestled in the highest branches, leaves all around her, Velvet slept, completely spent.

_A cool ocean breeze teased her hair, and the ground beneath her feet rocked in a steady, familiar rhythm. Velvet opened her eyes, and found herself on the deck of a ship far out at sea. Standing at the railing, looking out on the water beyond, she didn't have to turn her head to know who stood beside her._

_"__Velvet," Eizen greeted. "It's been a long time."_

_"__Eizen," she said, glancing at him. "I'm sorry I didn't get to see you again."_

_"__Me too," he sighed. "But thank you for setting Zaveid straight for me. I've been wanting to punch him for five hundred years."_

_"__Edna must be in anguish," Velvet responded. "It's cruel of him to hide the truth from her."_

_"__It's not really cruelty if there's no malicious intent," Eizen conceded. "Zaveid's actions are more…ignorant, than cruel. But thank you all the same."_

_"__Of course," Velvet replied. "It's the least I could do."_

_"__I'm glad you care about my sister," Eizen told her. "That means a lot to me. But don't you think you're being a little hard on Rokurou right now?"_

_"__How can you say that?!" Velvet demanded, turning on him. "After everything I told him over the course of the day, all he cares about is expanding his stupid treehouse!"_

_"__That's one way to look at it," Eizen said calmly. "Another interpretation is that, of all the problems he's been presented with in one day, he's focusing on the easiest one to solve first."_

_"__Problems," Velvet repeated, shaking her head and turning her attention back to the water below. "What problems? There's only the one, the problem of him being the only one in the way of repaying his damned debt…"_

_"__That and his relationship with you," Eizen said pointedly. "You were a little heavy on the details about your relationship with Niko in your dream world."_

_"__He doesn't care about that," Velvet scoffed._

_"__Rokurou may lack his emotions, but he has his honor," Eizen reminded her, "and to force himself on a woman when it's not what she wants is one of the most dishonorable things a man can do. I understand why you told him what you did - and more importantly, why you _didn't_ tell him certain things - but you've left him in a very confusing and uncomfortable position."_

_"__That's his problem, not mine," Velvet spat. "But since you seem to understand him so well, why don't you tell me why he did this in the first place?"_

_"__Which part?"_

_"__Any of it!" Velvet snapped. "Pestering Lailah and Edna for five hundred years, demanding Maotelus's help with a hopeless task, ripping me out of the earthpulse…hell, why did he kiss me?! Why did he even do that?!"_

_"__Well, if I had to guess," Eizen said slowly, "I'd say it's for the same reason you haven't eaten him: you're all he has left."_

_"__That's…really sad," Velvet remarked._

_"__Maybe, but there's a certain poetic beauty in it." Velvet turned to him, and saw that smile he always wore when his passion was awakened. "Two lost, broken souls, ancient relics of ages gone by, with nothing left for them in the world but each other…"_

_"__Don't try to make this romantic," Velvet scowled. "There's nothing romantic about my situation with Rokurou. I hate him. And don't you dare say what Zaveid said!"_

_Eizen chuckled. "That was an interesting quote, though," he commented. "'Hate is merely the result of wounded love'…I wonder where he heard that?"_

_Velvet gave a noncommittal grunt and turned away again, resting her arms on the railing of the deck._

_Silence stretched between them for a long minute, as Velvet waited for the inevitable lecture about Maotelus's commands. When it didn't come, she sighed._

_"__So what now?" she asked him. "I guess you're going to tell me I need to find my way back to my humanity?"_

_"__Velvet, you know me better than that," Eizen stated. "It's your life; what you do with it is up to you. I would only ask if this is really the life you want to be living."_

_"__Of course it's not the life I want to be living," Velvet growled. "Rokurou destroyed the life I want to be living."_

_"__Fair point," he conceded. "Let me rephrase: Is this really what you want to be doing with the life you've got? This _is_ your life now, Velvet, you know that full well. You're not going to wake up in Aball one morning, and taking your frustration out on Rokurou isn't going to change-"_

_"__I know that!" Velvet shouted, her fists clenching. "You think I don't know that?! I know full well that there's no way back, that nothing can change what I'm stuck with! I don't care! Just like I knew that killing Artorius wouldn't bring Laphi back, I don't care! My hatred is all I have, it's all I can live by!"_

_"__And does that make you happy?" Eizen asked._

_"__It doesn't matter," Velvet grumbled._

_"__I'd say it's the only thing that _does_ matter," Eizen argued, still calm. "What you do with your life is up to you. If the life you're living doesn't make you happy, you can always change it."_

_"__I can't be happy in this world," Velvet said softly. "Not after all that I've done…"_

_"__The world is a better place for what you did," Eizen pointed out. "The only one who still holds a grudge against you for your actions is you. Even Maotelus thinks you deserve to be happy…even _Innominat_ thought you deserve to be happy."_

_"__It doesn't matter what they think; I_ can't _go back," Velvet stated. "And even if I could…" She sighed heavily, then confessed the thought she could only share with a dream version of a wise malak. "Who would I be without my hatred?" she whispered. "I'm not just a daemon, not even just the Lord of Calamity; I am a therion, the therion of hatred. I became this way because I was perfectly receptive to the imperfection of hatred-malevolence. I have no family, no friends, no home, the world I lived in is long gone…without hatred, what would I have left?"_

_"__I can't answer that for you," Eizen told her. "That's up to you to figure out."_

_"__Nothing," she said. "That's what I would have left: nothing. So long as I hate, I know who I am; without that, I am nothing."_

_"__I'm not so sure about that," Eizen told her. "But it's up to you whether to stick with the pain you know or to venture into uncharted waters."_

_A clap of thunder shook Velvet from her reverie, and she looked up. During their whole conversation, the sky had been cloudy, but now the clouds had thickened; a storm wasn't too far ahead of them. "Eizen, should we really be sailing towards that?" she asked._

_He turned to look at the thunderheads that were looming over them, into which they were sailing at full speed. "Probably not," he replied._

_"__Then why are we going this way?" she demanded._

_He turned back to her, his blue eyes wide and confused. "Why are you looking at me?" he exclaimed. "I'm not the captain of this ship!"_

_"__Then who is?"_

_"__You are," he replied. "Remember? You bought this vessel yourself. Hell, you were the one who insisted we sail this way. The crew tried to tell you these were dangerous waters, but your orders were firm."_

_"__Only because there was nothing else on the map…" she remembered out loud. Looking around again, Velvet realized that they weren't aboard the Van Eltia at all, but rather the ship she had used to first escape from Titania. "Where _is_ the crew?" she asked, eyeing the empty deck._

_"__Probably down below, getting some sleep," Eizen answered. "You gave them their first break in two days just last night."_

_As the first drops of icy rain began pelting the wood, Velvet ran for the door to the hold, but found it locked tight from the inside. "What the hell?" she exclaimed._

_"__It locks from inside as a defense in case the ship gets boarded," Eizen informed her, still from his position beside the deck rail._

_Unleashing her therion claw, Velvet started pounding on the door, but the wood held unnaturally firm. In addition to the bashing, she started screaming, shouting for her crew to wake up, as the sky went dark and thunder rumbled loudly._

_"__A true sailor can sleep through anything but a few key triggers," Eizen said, perfectly audible over the tempest whipping up around them. "Your shouts won't do any good. It would take a fire big enough to spread below deck to wake them up."_

_"__Eizen, help me!" Velvet shouted, turning away from the door to yell at Eizen. "Help me turn this ship around!"_

_"__What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "I've been dead for centuries. A dead man can't be a deck hand." And he turned and jumped overboard, erupting into a dragon just before he hit the water and flying away._

_Roaring in frustration, Velvet dashed for the wheel and tried to turn it. With all her strength, she managed to make the boat change course slightly, but the raging winds still caught the sails, caught them too hard, and the battered vessel keeled to the side._

Put up the sails,_ she thought, bracing the wheel and abandoning it, running for the nets. _They're doing more harm than good.

_Grabbing a rope that was already soaked with rain, she started to pull, trying to get the sails to fold, but no matter what she did, it was too much work for her alone._

_"__Here, let me help."_

_Velvet looked up and saw Rokurou grabbing the other rope she needed to pull, wearing the exotic garb he'd worn fifteen hundred years ago. "Rokurou!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"_

_He smirked at her. "I stowed away," he admitted. "And it's a good thing I did. You'd sink without me."_

_"__Get away from that!" she shouted furiously, launching herself at him and kicking him away from the line. "I don't want your help! I'd rather drown than accept your help!"_

_"__Are you sure about that?" he asked, pushing himself back to his feet and stubbornly grabbing for the rope again. "Because that seems a little extreme…"_

_"__I said _get away from that_!" she screeched, kicking him back again before grabbing the rope herself. "I don't need you! I don't _want_ you! Leave me alone!"_

_Suddenly, the ship shuddered violently enough to send her tumbling across the deck, as though it had hit something big and solid. Once the floor was stable beneath her feet, Velvet ran to the side and looked behind them; five jagged spikes of rock stuck viciously out of the water where the boat had just been, sinking back below the massive waves even as she watched._

_Already, the ship was tilting, sinking, lightning crashing and wind howling. Velvet scrambled to find purchase on the slippery wood that was leaning at a sharper and sharper angle, but a massive wave caused the wreck to lurch violently, tossing her into the air, and she plunged down towards the-_

_A hand caught her bandaged wrist, and she looked up to see Rokurou leaning over the side of a lifeboat that was swinging perilously from the side of the ship's remains. "I got you!" he shouted. "We'll be okay, Velvet!"_

_"__Let go of me!" she raged at him, twisting and writhing in a desperate bid to escape his grip. "Let go of me!"_

_"__I won't let you fall, Velvet," he told her. "We're in this together."_

_No matter how hard she struggled, the bandages gave him too good a purchase on her limb, and his grip was solid. Gritting her teeth, she expanded her therion claw to its full size, hoping to rip loose. Her daemon arm was too big for one hand, but before he could drop her, Rokurou lurched forward and grabbed it with his other hand as well, and the jagged surface of her corrupted skin gave him even better purchase than the bandages had._

_"__I won't let you go," he said again. "You're going to be okay, Velvet, I promise."_

_"__Let. Me. Go!" she shrieked, digging her talons into his left wrist and twisting them around until she'd slashed his left hand clean off._

_Without both hands, Rokurou couldn't maintain his grip, and Velvet fell towards the raging sea like a stone, keeping her hateful glare fixed on him the whole way down, until the black water swallowed her. __Under the surface, she found herself tossed and turned around until she had no idea which way was up. The freezing, merciless currents swirled around her, and she could no more fight them than she could breathe them. Deeper and deeper into the darkness she was dragged, there was no hope for air, no escape-_

Gasping, Velvet lurched up and promptly whacked her head against a tree branch. A cool breeze chilled her sweaty skin and rustled the leaves around her perch.

_Another nightmare._

Panting, a hand going to rub the bump on her head, she slumped back down on the branches. Chirping birds told her it was dawn, if not later. _They were never this bad before, I swear,_ she thought. Hatred surged, and she embraced it. _Rokurou. Damn you, Rokurou. I hate you so much…_

~o~

Trying to fall back asleep proved futile. Though she tried to shift her weight, Velvet's treetop perch wasn't very conducive to rest even two hours later; she must have been even more exhausted the previous night than she'd thought. Sunlight streamed through the leaves, warm and bright, but Velvet didn't want to leave, didn't want to face the world. Just as she was starting to relax again, she heard footsteps beneath her.

Curious, she poked her head between a couple of branches, and saw an umbrella covering a small figure, large leather boots poking out from underneath as they walked. Even though she'd only seen this once before, Velvet knew exactly who it was. Before she'd even thought about it, Velvet dropped down from the treetops to land behind Edna.

Surprised, the small seraph whirled around, brandishing her umbrella like a weapon, her blue eyes hard. Though she clearly recognized Velvet, her defensiveness didn't change. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I was just…getting some rest," Velvet replied, unsure if this qualified as a lie. "How about you?"

"That's none of your business," Edna stated, though Velvet noticed she was carrying some flowers in her free hand. She glanced around, then asked, "So where's your friend?"

"He's not my friend," Velvet scowled, "and he's busy doing something stupid. Don't worry about him."

"So much for his fancy oaths," Edna muttered, finally lowering her umbrella.

"Trust me, it took a lot of convincing and a lot of promises to get him off my back," Velvet informed Edna. "His sense of honor runs deeper than the earthpulse."

"Hm." Edna opened her umbrella and put it over her shoulder, twirling it idly.

With her dream, and by extension, the previous day's conversation with Zaveid, fresh in her mind, Velvet couldn't help but ask, "Have you seen Zaveid since last night?"

"Zaveid? I saw him yesterday morning," Edna shrugged. "We meet every couple of days to keep up with each other's progress quelling the calamity your friend caused."

"But what about after sunset last night?" Velvet pressed, ignoring the bit about Rokurou being her 'friend' this time. "Have you seen him since then?"

"No," Edna replied. "Why?"

_She doesn't know._ Velvet found herself torn - it wasn't her problem, it was Zaveid's responsibility to tell Edna the truth; but on the other hand, if she let Edna walk away even though she knew, she would be guilty of the same offense…

The former Lord of Calamity sighed. "Rokurou and I went shopping in Ladylake yesterday," she told the earth seraph. "While we were there, we ran into Zaveid, and we all sat down together to catch up…and he told us what Rokurou saw when he thought he met up with your brother five hundred years ago."

Edna gasped, her emotionless facade momentarily shattered.

"Edna…are you aware that Zaveid has been wielding illusory artes for centuries?" Velvet asked her slowly.

"I…" Edna blinked, then regained her composure. "Sure," she answered tonelessly. "It's actually been incredibly useful for keeping hellions from causing trouble, better than that weird tool he gave Sorey once. In fact, I doubt we could have kept this calamity under control without his help. I assume he told you about that?'

"The calamity…yes, he told us what happened when Maotelus adjusted to Innominat's power," Velvet nodded. "But that's not the point. An illusory arte cast by Zaveid…is what Rokurou saw."

"What? You mean…no. No, y-you're lying," Edna stammered, though her shield was clearly fractured. "Zaveid's a dirtbag, but he wouldn't parade my brother's likeness around like that."

"He recognized Rokurou by his swords one day in Lastonbell," Velvet told Edna. "Knowing he was an old friend of your brother's, he decided to make sure Rokurou wasn't himself before herding him to the nearest purification user. He didn't actually expect Rokurou to recognize Eizen's image."

"But…but he would have told me!" Edna choked.

"He's ashamed," Velvet informed her. "And…more than a little afraid of you too, I think. I told him he had to tell you the truth yesterday afternoon, but if he hasn't had a chance since then…Well, if I let you walk away without telling you, I'd be no better than he is. Eizen would never forgive me."

There was silence for a few moments as this sank in; then, Edna dropped to her knees, the flowers slipping from her hands, and she began to sob. "I knew," she croaked through her tears. "I knew it wasn't really him…that my brother was dead…but…but I…"

"You couldn't entirely give up hope," Velvet finished. "You knew Rokurou knew your brother, so the possibility wasn't one you could just let go. I'm sure it's kept you awake at night for hundreds of years."

Edna didn't reply to this, crying under her umbrella as though Velvet hadn't spoken. _Nothing more I can do here,_ Velvet thought, and she turned to leave.

"Wait."

"Hm?" Velvet turned back around to see Edna's tearstained face looking up at her.

"Tell me about him," Edna whispered. "Tell me what my brother was like when you knew him."

"I…I'm sure you knew him better than I did," Velvet stammered.

"I knew him before he ran off to have his adventures," Edna snapped. "You knew him after that. You knew what he was really like. Please…please, tell me about him. I want to know…what he was _really_ like…"

Velvet sighed, but walked over and sat down a few feet away from Edna; this was going to take some time. "Eizen was…strong," she said after a moment's consideration. "Reliable. Wise. He saw and accepted the world the way it was, he had no illusions and no wishes clouding his vision, so we all knew we could trust his judgment. If I was the captain of our little group, he was our ship - and not just because he provided us with the ship we used to get around. He believed that everyone should be free to make their own choices in life, so he shared our hatred of the Abbey and the exorcists, who bound malakhim to them and suppressed their will, all their thoughts and feelings, and made them tools. He was the strength that held our group together. And yet…" Velvet couldn't help smiling. "He had an appreciation for the finer things in life, in art and poetry. If ever we came across some artifact or artistic work that was remarkable for any reason, he'd spend minutes describing to us why it was so incredible with the most rapturous expression on his face. The best pieces…he saved to be sent to you. He loved you, Edna, we all know he did. There was nothing in the world he cared for more than his little sister."

"But he left me," Edna said, her voice still quavering, her eyes glistening as she gazed longingly into the distance, as though she could see him just out of reach. "He ran off on his own without even saying goodbye, without even telling me what he left for…"

"He told us," Velvet said, surprised.

Edna's blue eyes turned to her again, shocking in their intensity. "Why?" she asked coldly.

"He left you in search of a way to break his Reaper's Curse," Velvet answered. "As long as he was the Reaper, being near him put you in danger, and he couldn't bear the thought that you might get hurt because of him."

"I can take care of myself," Edna spat.

"I know," Velvet sighed. "Having seen how much fear you can instill in a grown seraph, I know that. But you wouldn't know it from the way Eizen talked about you. He made it sound like you were a fragile, delicate flower that had to be sheltered at all costs, that it was a miracle you didn't end up dead from living with him."

"So he didn't know me," Edna said listlessly, turning away again. "He didn't know me at all…"

The two sat in silence for a minute.

"Did he ever find a way to break his curse?" Edna eventually asked.

"We found one, while he was traveling with us," Velvet answered. "But, long before we met him, he…met a man named Aifread, the pirate captain."

"So he gave up to live his life as a pirate," Edna said.

"It wasn't that simple," Velvet explained. "Aifread had strong resonance, so he could see Eizen stowing away on his ship, and talked to him. Eizen explained his curse, and Aifread helped him accept it as part of who he was. I never met the man myself, but Eizen described him as…the ocean, personified into a man, with a pointy beard. Fitting, really, as I could best describe Eizen as being the earth personified into a man - steadfast, reliable, both brutal and kind, beautiful and ugly, without any illusions or pretenses as to how things work. Almost no regrets…except…" She sighed. "He wished he could see you again, Edna. He truly did. But once he accepted himself for who he was, he knew he had to stay away from you."

"He didn't have to!" Edna shouted, startling Velvet. "If you could cope with his stupid curse, then so could I! Didn't he ever think about how lonely I would be? Didn't he ever consider how much he hurt me when he left? How could this person you're describing be so selfish?!"

Memories of her own family arose at the back of Velvet's mind, and she grimaced. "I won't tell you that he did the right thing," she said. "I won't tell you to forgive him, either. I'm only telling you what I know; what you do with it is up to you."

"Don't act like you have any idea how I feel, hellion!" Edna shouted, rising to her feet and waving her umbrella.

Slowly, Velvet rose, her eyes closed. "Edna," she said softly, "let me tell you about _my_ family."

"I don't care!"

"I had an older sister named Celica, and a little brother named Laphicet," Velvet told her, eyes still closed as she remembered. "My sister died one scarlet night during a bandit attack, and took her unborn child with her. Her husband, Arthur, took care of us after she passed, but he was…distant. My only real family was Laphi.

"Laphi was always a sickly boy. He would get fevers every few days, and I would tend to him, cook for him and give him medicine I bought from the nearby city. He spent so much time in bed, but he wanted to travel the world more than anything, so he read books. Many books. Learned languages, even copied Arthur's tome written in the ancient tongue by hand, all by himself. He had strong resonance, like Arthur, and I thought he would grow up to be a great exorcist like him.

"Then, three years after my sister died, there was another scarlet night. I woke up in the middle of the night, and Laphi wasn't home. I searched the entire village for him, then the nearby forest, eventually finding him standing at the enormous pit where an old shrine used to be, by the seaside. He was there…and so was Arthur. And as I watched, Arthur…stabbed Laphi in the chest, raised him into the air with an arte, and threw him in that pit."

Velvet opened her eyes, and saw that Edna was listening, unmoving.

"I tried to jump in to save him," Velvet went on, "just barely catching him and the edge of the hole. Arthur looked at me with cold eyes, then cut off the hand I was using to hold on. Laphi and I fell - to be consumed by Innominat, I later learned - and then I was spat out…like this." She raised her bandaged arm. "A daemon. A therion, one of the Seven Mouths of Innominat.

"I was locked in a prison that stood over an earthpulse point, and there, I was experimented on, to see if I would truly feed Innominat with the power he needed to rise. I could feel only rage, only a desire for revenge, against the man who had killed the last of my family, for three years, until a malak broke me out and I set off on my quest to avenge my brother. But over the course of this quest…I learned, through the Earthen Historia, the truth.

"Laphi had a disease called the Twelve Year Sickness, an illness that dooms a child to die at the age of twelve. I didn't know that, but apparently he did. My sister's unborn child had accidentally been the first sacrifice to Innominat, but the Empyrian needed two - two souls, with strong resonance and uncorrupted by malevolence. Laphi confronted Arthur about it, and asked to be the second sacrifice, so that his death would lead to a future where I could be happy. And he made Arthur promise…not to tell me. All of this was done behind my back."

Edna's eyes lit with understanding, and she lowered her umbrella.

"All the destruction, all the rage, that I had spent trying to avenge my brother…and he hadn't wanted to be avenged," Velvet growled, her fists clenching. "He betrayed me, he conspired to leave me all alone in the world, without ever telling me anything. His plan that night was to just vanish, leaving me with no idea what had happened to him, all so that _I could be happy_. Learning that…made me even angrier. At both him and Arthur. They both betrayed me, and I hated them."

"He was dying anyway," Edna pointed out, though her voice was unsteady.

"I know that," Velvet said. "And I know that if he had told me what he planned to do beforehand - even if he'd told me his disease, his fate - I would have tried to stop him, I would have clung to hope that he might live. I know he did what he did because he loved me. But I didn't care. I still don't." Velvet locked eyes with the tiny seraph. "So I can't tell you to forgive Eizen for abandoning you, not when I can't forgive my own brother for the same," she said. "All I can tell you is that he loved you, and that that's why he did what he did; you're free to hate him as much as you like."

"But I…I don't want to hate him!" Edna exclaimed, her voice cracking. "I just want to see him again!"

"You will," Velvet said, surprising herself with her certainty.

"Huh?"

"I'm sure that wherever seraphim go after they die, Eizen is there, and he's waiting for you," Velvet told Edna. "And I'm sure…he's proud of you."

"You're just saying that," Edna choked.

"Do I really strike you as the type to say things just to make people feel better?" Velvet asked coldly, crossing her arms.

"No…but I…I've been trying," Edna sobbed. "Trying so hard…to live in a world, without my brother…" She looked up, eyes shining with tears. "I don't want to!"

"'Good. Then die,'" Velvet said.

Edna blinked.

"'But only after living,'" Velvet said. "'Doing everything you want to in life. Please, live. This is my last, selfish request.'" She closed her eyes. "Those were my last words to Maotelus, as I sealed Innominat away. And if Eizen were here, I know he'd say the same to you."

Softly at first, then building to a shriek, Edna cried out, and before Velvet could react, the ancient seraph with a child's face threw herself at the former daemon lord and buried her head in Velvet's tattered coat, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed.

"Uh…" Velvet stared at the little girl weeping openly into her old coat, her blood running cold as she thought of the malevolence that had been pouring out of her just last night. "You shouldn't touch me…I…I'm a daemon, remember…?"

Clearly, Edna was beyond caring, helplessly whimpering and wailing as tears streamed from her eyes onto the battle-scarred leather. Velvet stood still for a minute, unsure what to do - she couldn't touch Edna safely, not with all the malevolence that permeated her being. Then, slowly, she raised her uncorrupted hand and carefully patted the back of Edna's head with the wristband that held her gauntlet blade in place, praying it would be enough cover.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Edna's emotional episode subsided, and she stepped back, wiping her face with her gloved hand. "Stupid Eizen," she muttered. "Stupid…"

"He was," Velvet agreed. "I can see that."

Edna looked up at her, frowning. "Stop trying to make me feel better," she said, her voice emotionless once more. "Seriously. I don't want to be comforted by a hellion."

"I'm not comforting you," Velvet told her. "I'm just telling you what I know, what I believe. You don't have to believe me, but telling empty lies of hope is pointless." She scowled. "Hope is a waste."

The frown on Edna's lips tilted upward into a tiny smirk. "It's funny," she commented; "you were the Lord of Calamity, but you're a lot more tolerable than most humans."

"I appreciate the compliment," Velvet said, matching Edna's emotionless voice.

They stood there, smiling faint, almost-sarcastic smiles at each other, for a few moments.

"I should go," Velvet said at last, turning away. "Rokurou might have fallen out of a tree and broken his neck."

"Wouldn't want that to happen, after all the trouble we went to helping him figure out how to rescue you," Edna remarked. "We could have killed him ourselves a long time ago."

"And I wish you had," Velvet sighed. "Take care of yourself, Edna."

"Yeah, you too."

Velvet heard, but didn't see, Edna scoop up the flowers she'd dropped on the ground. What she did not hear was the sound of Edna's boots in the grass; instead, the seraph stood where she was, presumably staring at the gift she carried. Velvet smiled to herself, knowing that she'd been right: those flowers were for Eizen.


	17. Unable to Find an Answer

Letting Velvet walk away took a lot of effort, but Rokurou knew he had no other options. When Velvet Crowe was making promises on her sister's grave, it was time for even him to take things seriously. Besides, with all he had to process, he couldn't complain about being alone.

As he'd mentioned, the first thing he did was set to work expanding his treehouse, but it wasn't because it was all that important; rather, he simply needed to be _doing_ something, he was too restless to meditate on any of the matters at hand. To meditate, he knew, would be to feel nothing but the _thunk…thunk…thunk_ of his broken soul, and that wouldn't help him achieve anything. Instead, he began prying the entire back wall off the treehouse, to be reused once he'd expanded the place a bit. If he was confident in one thing, it was his strength - he'd pulled a Mana Wheel apart by himself, after all.

Night had long since finished falling by the time he'd succeeded, but in that time, he mulled over the calamity he'd caused by pulling that Mana Wheel apart. Such drastic consequences weren't something he'd ever expected, but what did it truly matter to him? It sounded like Sorey and his malakhim were handling the situation just fine, and Velvet wanted as little to do with society as possible, so there was no real impact on his life. Still, that calm acceptance felt wrong somehow; it should matter, shouldn't it? But nothing mattered, not to him…

He slept in his open-ended treehouse, woke up the next morning, and carried on, sparing only a few moments' thought to where Velvet might be. As he started cutting more trees, praying he'd happen upon more of that special wood, he thought about his debt. In order to repay it, he had to be willing to change, and also convince Velvet to do the same; the fact was, he wasn't sure which was more impossible. To change, to be someone other than who he was…who would he be, if he willingly gave all this up? He wasn't _that_ different from when he'd been human, he'd only shed a few inconvenient qualities that he didn't miss, at least not unless Velvet somehow made him. What was it he had to change? And what about Velvet, what did she have to change?

These puzzles continued to turn in the back of his mind as he resumed construction with a substantial amount of skibus wood, which he intended to make the entire new room out of. He tried using the hammer Velvet had found in her cabin instead of the hilts of his weapons, but this felt wrong; wielding something other than a sword simply wasn't his style, and after a couple of minutes, he gave up and tossed the blunt tool away - he was building Rangetsu style, and that meant he would do it with a blade.

One thing he did not think about, _could_ not think about, was Velvet. That was just too much to unpack.

Speaking of Velvet…

It was midafternoon by the time he heard footsteps approaching, and he looked up from his work eagerly to see Velvet stalking towards him. Relieved, he opened his mouth…and she turned around and stomped away before he could even speak.

"Velvet!" he called.

She ignored him, and in moments, she was gone again.

_How can she still be sulking?_ he wondered as he returned his attention to the nail he was pounding into the new wall. _It's been almost a whole day. What could she be so upset about this time that's so much worse than anything before…?_

_Thunk!_

"Ow!"

The jarring sensation in his chest had caused him to wince at the same moment he tried to pound on a nail, and he'd missed and bashed the hilt of his dagger against his other hand instead, hard enough to break the skin. Cursing under his breath, Rokurou tried to shake the injury off, only to find that that just made it worse. _Apple gels, _he thought, _I have plenty of apple gels. Damn it…_

Setting aside the current load he was working on, he made his way into the open treehouse and pulled out the box of gels he'd bought. As he took one out and started eating it, feeling the refreshing medicine spread to the wound in his hand, he scowled, thinking about how he'd intended to use these for his fights with Velvet.

With Velvet…

_THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK-!_

Rokurou's hand squeezed the remains of the gel so hard it burst, spraying all over his tunic, but he didn't notice. Clasping his hands to his chest, he doubled over in pain as his entire being shook. It wasn't one singular failed mechanism; it felt more like there were dozens if not hundreds of emotions he was trying and failing to feel at once. Gritting his teeth, he knelt down and focused his attention on his breathing, desperate to salvage control from the chaos.

_Velvet._

He'd avoided thinking about her for a reason: there would be no more 'with Velvet', not now that he knew her childhood love had been a girl. _Why did she ever let there be a 'with her' in the first place? It doesn't make any sense…_

A memory sprang to mind: _"The only reason I would ever repeat last night is to taste your blood again."_

_Bloodlust,_ he thought. _It's my blood she wants. It's not…it's not me. It's just her hatred, her desire to hurt me however she can._ Something about this still didn't seem quite accurate, but it was painful to think about, the way his soul shuddered and stuttered with all its missing parts as he tried to come to terms with any of it.

_No point thinking about it,_ he told himself. _No point. There are plenty of other things to consider…_

After what felt like hours of telling himself this, he managed to reduce the jarring sensation enough that he could stand and refocus on building. Even as he got back to work, though, pounding nails much harder than he really needed to and thinking about anything and everything besides Velvet, his soul still echoed with hollow pain.

_Thunk…thunk…thunk…_

~o~

Days passed as Rokurou worked - more days, somehow, than it had taken to build the original structure. Every now and then, Velvet would come by, but she would immediately walk away again as soon as their eyes met, and after the third time, he wanted to yell in frustration. _Why is she even coming by if she won't let me talk to her?!_

What was more, since Velvet stubbornly refused to be in his presence for more than two seconds at a time, he had to prepare the foods he'd bought himself. Though he didn't consider himself a bad chef by any stretch of the imagination, everything he made paled in comparison to what Velvet could do, and it was a shame to have wasted money on ingredients only for them not to be used in her masterpieces. He could only hope that she herself was eating innocent daemons and not wreaking havoc in some town or other.

Between building and training, Rokurou kept busy, but his mind felt sluggish, never reaching any sort of conclusion about anything. Pieces of his soul weren't the only things he was missing anymore - it felt like pieces of his brain were missing now too. Nothing computed - not his debt, not the calamity, and especially not Velvet. Rather than try, he simply focused on what he knew, and if nothing else, time passed. Slowly, uneasily, but it passed.

Five days after the last fight with Velvet, Rokurou hammered the wall he'd taken down onto the back of the new room, dropped to the ground, stepped back to appraise his work, and sighed with satisfaction. _Done. Now all I have to do is wait for Velvet to get over whatever she's so mad about._ The fact that he hadn't really been keeping an eye on her for days had him uneasy, but he knew it was, in its way, the only way to _not_ break his oath to Sorey.

He trained until nightfall, and Velvet still hadn't come by. Most of the food had been used or spoiled by then, so he chopped up everything that was still useable into mince and stir-fried the result over the fire pit Velvet had made. It wasn't until he sat down on a tree stump to eat that he finally heard Velvet's steel-coated boots stomping through the undergrowth.

Shoveling food into his mouth, he looked up, not really expecting her to stay. Their eyes met, and she glared at him, but when several seconds passed without her turning away, he decided to test the waters.

"Hey, Velvet," he said, his voice muffled by food. He swallowed and asked, "Are you done sulking?"

"That depends," she replied coldly; "are you done building?"

"Oh yeah, construction's done," he told her between mouthfuls.

"Then I'm done sulking," she sighed, walking over to sit on a tree stump across the fire pit from him.

"That's what you were waiting for?" he asked. "How come?"

"It doesn't matter."

With there clearly being no point in pursuing that line of conversation, he gestured to the pot over the fire, which still contained some stir-fry. "Want some?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "You know I can't taste food, and I ate two boar daemons on the way here."

"Still, I know you can never feel full," he remarked. "You're welcome to it if you like."

"No, thank you," she said icily.

Silence stretched between them for a minute as Rokurou ate. There was tension in the air that he couldn't figure out how to address, some unspoken words he couldn't articulate.

"So," he finally inquired slowly, "what have you been up to these past few days?"

"It's none of your business," she huffed, crossing her arms.

"I mean, it kind of is…"

She rolled her eyes. "I haven't been causing chaos or anything like that," she told him. "I haven't even set foot in a town or village this whole time. Your stupid oath hasn't been broken…yet. Satisfied?"

"Good enough for me," he mumbled through a mouthful of food.

"Don't talk with your mouth full!" she spat. "You're disgusting!"

Swallowing, Rokurou chuckled. "You sound like Eleanor," he commented.

Velvet growled at him.

More silence, save for the sounds of Rokurou shoveling food into his face as quickly as possible.

"What took you so long to finish your damned second room?" Velvet finally asked. "I thought you built the original treehouse in two days."

Taking care to swallow before he spoke this time, Rokurou shrugged. "I did," he replied. "I'm not sure why this took so much longer. Maybe…" He sighed, then admitted, "Maybe it's because I've had a lot of other things on my mind, too."

"What mind?" she scoffed.

"Velvet, that's not fair," he protested.

"Well, it's not like you care about anything," Velvet said pointedly.

_Thunk._ "That doesn't mean I can't think," Rokurou responded.

"Whatever." Velvet stood up. "Finish eating so we can fight over the bed. I'm tired."

_Thunk!_ "Velvet-!" Rokurou choked on a bit of food and started coughing and spluttering, trying to get his breath back.

Golden eyes glared coldly at him, flickering with burning hatred in the firelight.

"Velvet," he finally managed to rasp out, setting his bowl aside and standing up to look her in the eye. "We can't…" He coughed again. "We can't fight like that anymore," he managed at last. "I won't do that to you."

"And why the hell not?" she demanded.

"I mean…" He faltered, unsure why she wasn't expecting this. "Velvet…your childhood love was a girl."

"And?"

"And…Well, um…How do I put this?…" She wasn't making sense, and the jarring _thunk_s in his chest didn't help him with finding the right words.

"Rokurou, if I had no interest in men, don't you think you would have won by now?" she sighed frustratedly.

"I mean, it's my blood you want," Rokurou replied. "Bloodlust, you know? Not…not like…"

"Okay, let me put it this way," she huffed: "If I had no interest in men, do you think we would have even _started_ fighting like that?"

"Again, bloodlust," he responded.

Velvet shook her head. "You really are an idiot," she grumbled. "How am I still underestimating how stupid you are?"

"Why is this stupid?" Rokurou exclaimed. "What am I missing here?"

"Rokurou, I'm attracted to both men _and_ women," Velvet told him with exaggerated patience. "I've always been that way, since before I even became a daemon. It's not that hard to understand, is it?"

Rokurou pondered this. "So…men and women look the same to you?" he asked.

"Of course not," she answered. "But I can see the appeal in both, in their respective ways."

"Huh." Despite his confusion, Rokurou smirked. "So you see appeal in _me_, then?" he asked, half-teasing.

"I didn't say that!" she snapped, though her pale cheeks flushed bright red.

"You kind of did…"

"Oh, forget it!" she snarled. "Why do I even bother with you?!"

"You tell me," he shrugged, unruffled. In a way, her anger was comforting in its familiarity.

Another wordless growl was all he got in response.

"In any case, I've been using the bed during the days you've been gone," Rokurou continued. "I didn't earn it, but you weren't using it. Why don't you use it tonight? Just to be fair."

"Is this your idea of chivalry?" she asked spitefully.

"You call it chivalry, I call it being too tired to figure this out," he responded with a carefree grin.

"Whatever," she growled again, but she turned and scaled the ladder into the expanded treehouse.

"The bed's in the new room!" he called to her, taking the pot off the fire and setting it and his bowl aside; he was full, and the washing could wait until the next day. If anything, the leftovers might attract some animals he could use to restock.

Velvet didn't reply, and he climbed up into the expanded treehouse and made for the corner of the original room where he'd made a little nest, his ears on high alert. Settling down, he listened to the rustling as Velvet took off her jacket and gauntlet, the thumping as she kicked off her boots, the swishing as she got in the bed…and her gasp a few moments later.

"Rokurou."

He smirked. "Yes?"

"What did you do?"

"I told you," he replied; "while we were in Ladylake, I bought food, drinks, and some other things. You saw what I was carrying everything in."

"That was…" Noises coming from the other room told him she'd gotten up and was walking to the empty doorframe between the two sections of the treehouse. He stood up too, just to meet her head on, as she stared at him disbelievingly. "New bedsheets?"

"Yep!" he said proudly. "Those will be yours, and I'll use the old ones. Heh, I've made and remade that bed every day for the last five days just in case you came back." He gestured to the pile of rags he'd been lying on for all of two minutes.

Whatever he'd been expecting, her suspicious glare wasn't it. "Why?" she asked coldly.

"Uh…" He blinked. "I don't know, I just…felt like it," he shrugged. "I wanted to do something nice for you."

"But you're not nice," she hissed.

"Wh…?"

"You're not _sorry_," she spat, taking a menacing step towards him. "Are you? Can you look me in the eye right now and tell me, swear by your swords or your ancestors or whatever, that you regret what you took away from me, that you feel _any_ remorse for destroying the only peace I will ever know?"

_Thunk! _"Well…uh…no," he admitted.

"Then don't try to butter me up with nice gestures!" she snapped. "I don't want meaningless kindness from you!"

"Look, I did something nice, does it really matter why?!" he exclaimed.

"Of course it matters!" she raged. "False kindness is worse than outright cruelty! And nothing you do will change anything anyway, Rokurou, because you ruined my life and I hate you!"

With that, she turned and stormed back into the bedroom, diving into the bed and pulling the sheets over her head in what was clearly the closest thing to slamming a door she could manage.

Rokurou stared at her, baffled, his heartbeat pounding through the aching emptiness in his soul. Saying anything at all would only make things worse, but returning to his pile of smelly old cloth didn't feel right either.

After several minutes of hollow pain, Rokurou turned around and walked to the entrance of the treehouse, sitting down in the doorframe and looking up at the sky. Overhead, the moon shone bright and full, while the stars twinkled in their all-seeing way. Unable to rest or close his eyes, Rokurou kept his gaze fixed heavenwards, as though the eternal expanse beyond the clouds held all the answers and would reveal their secrets if he only stared long enough.

~o~

Morning came, and Velvet woke in the most comfortable bed she'd had since before sealing Innominat away. It almost felt like home, except that it was nothing but a stupid, empty gesture from Rokurou. Grumbling with hatred, she got up and dressed herself, ready for another pointless day of daemon-hunting with her enemy. But as she went to leave, she saw Rokurou sitting in the entrance, his head tilted upwards.

"How long have you been up?" she asked, walking over to him.

"All night," he replied.

"You've just been sitting here all night?" she asked, surprised that she was surprised.

"Yeah," he said softly as she sat down next to him - luckily, the doorframe was just wide enough that they could sit side-by-side without touching. "I've been thinking."

"Thinking?" she repeated. "All night? In that case, we'd better move to old Northgand pretty soon."

"What for?" he asked, turning to look at her.

"To prepare ourselves for hell," she replied with a shrug. "It must have frozen over by now."

Infuriatingly, Rokurou burst out laughing. "Magilou would have loved that one," he managed through his mirth.

Velvet scowled and looked away.

After a moment, his laughter subsided, but he didn't say anything more. It took a minute before Velvet gave in and sighed.

"Fine, I'll bite," she grumbled: "what have you been thinking about?"

He looked at her sideways through his one human eye, his expression oddly serious. "Velvet…do my reasons for doing something really matter that much to you?" he asked. Before she could exclaim that yes, of course they did, he added, "I mean, Artorius's reasons didn't matter to you. Your brother's reasons didn't matter to you. Hell, _your_ reasons don't matter to you. Why do mine matter?"

For a minute, Velvet worked her jaw furiously, searching for the words with which to argue against him, but she couldn't find any. Rather than admit he had a point, she instead snarled, "You've spent all night thinking, and that's the best you can do?"

But he just gave her a small smile. "You're just determined to hate me, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically. "I'd almost go so far as to say you enjoy looking for reasons to hate me."

"So what if I do?!" she snapped, throwing out her anger to hide how deeply his words cut to the heart of the matter. "I'm the therion of hatred. Hatred is who I am, it's why I live. I'd be nothing without hatred."

Rokurou blinked, and she realized she'd confessed to something he hadn't actually begun to guess at. "Really?" he asked. "Is that why you haven't killed me, because if I died you'd have nothing to hate?"

"I haven't killed you because Phi told me not to, and I can't say no to Phi," Velvet grumbled, "but I won't deny that that's a convenient side effect of the situation."

"Huh," he mused, tilting his head. "Well, it's a good thing we brought that up, because to answer your question, no, that's not all I've been thinking about. I've also been thinking about my debt to Sorey…about what it would mean to follow through on his orders."

"Purifying yourself, you mean?" Velvet asked.

"Myself _and_ you," Rokurou corrected. "But starting with me, I guess." His frown was entirely too pensive for him. "I thought I wouldn't let it happen until I finally achieved my dream…but now I don't know. I spent centuries training and accomplished nothing; now, I'm keeping an eye on you, and even if training would one day get me where I want to be, I can't keep that up anymore."

"You could always let me go," Velvet said pointedly.

"No," he sighed, "I can't. And not just because Sorey told me to. But living with you makes me realize…just how broken I am."

Velvet blinked. "Huh?"

"I don't know what it is about you, Velvet, but ever since I released you, I've _noticed_ my lack of emotions, in a way I never did before," he told her. "I can't _not_ notice it. It…it hurts. And now I'm starting to wonder…what if I've already reached my dream, but just can't recognize it because I'm not capable of feeling anything? How would I know that I'm as strong as I want to be, if I can never feel happiness or satisfaction? I could well have far surpassed my brother, and I might have no idea."

"I think you know your swordsmanship skills better than anyone," Velvet shrugged, keeping her tone carefully neutral even as she was surprised and shaken by what he was saying. "If you think you're still not as strong as Shigure was, you probably aren't."

"But I'm not sure anymore," he said. "I just don't know. All I know…is…" He sighed heavily. "I'm tired. There, I said it. I'm tired."

"Not surprising, if you've been up all night," Velvet remarked, deliberately missing his point.

But Rokurou shook his head. "No, I mean, I'm tired of all of this," he said. "I'm tired of never getting any stronger no matter what I do. I'm tired of not feeling. I'm tired of carrying my family's legacy around when I know they'd be ashamed that a daemon is their last heir. I'm tired of all of it. I…I think…I think I'm ready to face the Silver Flame."

This stunning admission hung in the air for a long minute. "I didn't think you'd crack so soon," Velvet finally managed. "Hell, I didn't think you'd crack at all."

"Yeah," he chuckled, "me either. But even now, there's just one problem: I can't face the Silver Flame until you're ready, too."

"Why not?" Velvet yelped.

"Because I still have to keep an eye on you," he replied simply. "It takes a daemon to control a daemon."

"You and your-!" Velvet shook her head, letting anger sear away all her confusion and shock. "Well, I'm not ready," she stated. "I never will be. Even if I was, it wouldn't matter; I can't be purified. Like I said, I'm the therion of hatred, perfectly receptive to hatred-malevolence."

"The other therions were purified," Rokurou pointed out. "Pretty easily, in fact."

"They didn't choose their malevolence!"

"Neither did you."

"But…" Velvet growled in frustration. "None of them _embraced_ it. None of them ever did anything like what I did."

"Kamoana ate her mother."

"Shut up!" Velvet shouted. "I was the Lord of Calamity!"

"Lords of Calamity can be purified," Rokurou told her. "I've heard of it happening. And honestly, Velvet…you're not a bad person."

"You're one to judge," she scoffed.

"Maybe not, but Maotelus is, and he insists the same," Rokurou reasoned. "Velvet, I've never seen you be actively cruel towards anyone but me and maybe yourself-"

"Don't start talking about any _good deeds_ I've ever done!" Velvet yelled, thinking back on what Zaveid had told her nearly a week earlier and cringing.

"But you have," Rokurou said, blinking at her.

"I can't go back," she spat. "I can't. I am a monster. I am the therion of hatred."

"Velvet, don't you get tired of hating all the time?" Rokurou asked. "I'm tired of my burdens, aren't you tired of yours?"

"Stop it!" she cried. "Just stop it!"

"I mean, I get it," he went on, "it's hard to give up the thing that matters most to you. The idea of living without hatred must be the same for you as the idea of living without my swords would be for me."

"Don't flatter yourself," she sneered. "You're not nearly as important to me as your damn swords are to you!"

"I didn't say anything about me," he pointed out.

"_Shut up_!" _Stop talking! Stop making sense! You aren't supposed to make sense!_

"Just some things to think about," he shrugged, standing up and stretching. "Listen, I've been up all night. Are you done with the bed?"

"Yes," she growled, "get some sleep."

"Don't worry, I'll change the sheets out," he told her as he walked back inside.

"Don't change the sheets," she told him over her shoulder.

"Velvet, those sheets are yours-"

"_Don't_," she repeated acidly, "change the sheets. I don't want your false kindness, Rokurou."

"But-"

"Don't change them or I'll shred both sets to ribbons!" she shouted.

"Alright, fine," he relented. "Sheesh."

And he walked into the bedroom to leave her with her thoughts.

_He's wrong,_ Velvet told herself. _There's no going back for me. I am a monster, and I embrace it. This is who I am. _

Her corrupted blood sang through her veins in agreement. _Hate, hate, hate_, chanted her heartbeat, and she soothed herself with its harsh rhythm. _Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, _doubt.

Velvet gasped at the sudden, jarring note that broke the eternal pattern of her malevolent soul. _I am the therion of hatred!_ she raged at herself. _There is no doubt! None!_

But the beats only got more atonal. _Hate, hate, doubt, hate, doubt, wonder, hate, hate, worry, hate, doubt, hate, worry, wonder, hate, hate, hate, doubt, hate, doubt, fear, hate, wonder, hate, doubt, worry, hate, hate…_

Then voices started coming back to her:

_"__You don't have any ambitions to spread chaos."_

_"__Only you can make something of what you've been given."_

_"__Is this really what you want to be doing with the life you've got?"_

Gritting her teeth, Velvet clutched her head in her hands as memories of her nightmares echoed through her mind. _Shut up!_ she wanted to scream, both at the ghosts of her past and at herself. _I can never go back! I can't! I _can't_!_

_"__If the Empyrian who believes all human emotions should be suppressed thinks you can deserve happiness, why can't _you_ believe it?"_

_"__Your questions are not meaningless; they will pave the way to a brighter future."_

_"__If the life you're living doesn't make you happy, you can always change it."_

She did scream then, a raw, primal roar, not knowing or caring if she was waking Rokurou, as her heartbeat continued its disrupted melody. _Hate, doubt, hate, wonder, hate, hate, worry, doubt, hate, doubt, doubt, hate…_It was unbearable.

Leaping from the treehouse to the ground, Velvet started running, blindly, wildly, she didn't know where she was going nor did she care, she only wanted to get away from the voices, the doubts, the lies. They were all lies. She couldn't be saved, she knew she couldn't, not after all she had done.

_"__The only person who still holds a grudge against you for your actions is you."_

_"__The world forgave and forgot ages ago, babe."_

Zaveid's voice joined the echoes in her head, all the more painful for the fact that it wasn't from a dream. Screeching again, she turned on the nearest tree and unleashed her therion claw and gauntlet blade, smashing and ripping it to splinters.

_I am a therion! I am a monster! I can't go back! I can't be saved!_

_Doubt, hate, doubt, wonder, hate, worry, hate, fear, hate, hate, doubt, hate, doubt…_

Raging and trying to shut it all out, Velvet kept attacking the helpless wood. But no amount of fury could burn away the voices, the confused new rhythm of her heartbeat. Even hours later, when night fell and she was surrounded by half a dozen trees that had been thoroughly pounded into dust, she couldn't escape.

Collapsing to the ground in a heap, tears streaming down her face, Velvet knew only one fact, the one she always meant whenever she made any other excuse, as all of her hatred finally turned on its one true target, the only person it had ever been meant for all along: herself.

_I don't deserve to be saved. I don't deserve a second chance. I don't deserve to live…_

But this only summoned yet another voice, one far older than any of the others that had plagued her, a voice that had been directed, not at her, but at the first target of her boundless hatred, the reason she was even here now, when he had said the same thing she was thinking: _"Is life something you have to earn? To deserve?"_

_It is!_ she thought. _After all I've done, it is! And I don't! I don't deserve it!_

Yet the voices would not leave her be…not even the one that sounded like it might be her own:

_"__It's not up to you to decide what you deserve."_

~o~

When Rokurou woke at dusk to find Velvet gone, he wasn't sure what to think. In any case, there was no point in trying to find her, she could have been anywhere by then; instead, he hunted, and trained, living his life while he waited for her to come back. The uneasy peace he'd reached with the idea of being purified was oddly soothing to hold onto, even as he prayed his training would finally help him see what he was missing before he had to go that far.

Getting in his practice swings and killing the first animal he found for a bit of meat took up what little remained of the day, and he went back to sleep after nightfall. When the next day dawned and Velvet still wasn't back, the fact that he had no idea where she was began to nag at him.

_There's no point going to look for her,_ he told himself as he started his training right away. _She'd probably rip your head off even if you found her. She just needs some time. Be patient; you're closer than ever to repaying your debt._

He trained all day, getting in far more than ten thousand practice swings but determined to see how much he could do before Velvet returned. Night fell, and he was actually getting close to reaching a hundred thousand when he heard uneven footsteps. Pausing, he turned in the direction of the sound. It didn't really sound like Velvet, but there was no one else it could be.

From under the trees, Velvet's form slowly emerged, her steps heavy, her therion claw dragging along the ground. She looked battered, covered in dirt and plant remains. Even in the dark, her eyes were hazy with exhaustion.

"Velvet," Rokurou greeted cautiously, sheathing his swords. "Where have you been?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Rokurou," she rasped, her voice raw, "please, tell me something…If a daemon is purified by the Silver Flame, does that mean they can never be corrupted again?"

"Uh…" She was clearly serious, and Rokurou pondered her question before answering. "I don't…think so," he finally replied slowly. "I mean, Phi said that it only gives people a second chance, that doesn't sound like a permanent cure for daemonblight to me. Besides, if it did, then why wouldn't he just use the Silver Flame on everything and prevent anyone from ever becoming a daemon?"

"Yes," Velvet sighed. "You're right." Rokuoru's heart _thunk_ed at the fact that she wasn't spitting on him for once, but before he could say anything else, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. "Tomorrow," she said softly.

"Tomorrow…what?" he asked.

"Tomorrow, we're going to find Maotelus," Velvet said. "I…I can't do this anymore, Rokurou. I'm ready too. Let's end this."

"Really?" Rokurou blinked. "I didn't think you were going to come around…"

"Neither did I," she sighed, "but I can't go on like this, Rokurou, I just can't. I'm done. I can't keep doing this. And it's not up to me what happens…what should happen."

Whatever that meant, Rokurou decided not to question it, and he nodded at her. "Tomorrow," he agreed.


	18. Burn

Rokurou insisted that Velvet take the bed, without contest. Velvet wanted to taste his blood one more time, but he made the point that they probably shouldn't go to Maotelus all beat up and bleeding or he'd wonder what they'd been doing. She couldn't argue with this, so she took the bed, half praying that the sun would never rise.

The sun did rise, of course, light and warmth streaming through the window onto Velvet's battered, poorly-rested body. Despite the clean sheets and the soft mattress, a sick feeling in her gut had kept her from sleeping soundly, and she rose with a groan. _I'm a mess,_ she thought, glancing at the twigs and leaves she'd left on the sheets as she'd tossed and turned. _I can't let Phi see me like this…_

"I'm going to bathe before we leave," she told Rokurou as she passed his nest in the next room.

"Take your time," he responded.

Hatred surged, but Velvet didn't have the strength to act on it. Her entire being had burned out, and she couldn't keep lying to herself; this wasn't the life she should be living.

Washing off in the stream, Velvet stared at the flowing water and thought, pondering everything that had happened. The world had forgotten her crimes and moved on, always moved on, just like this stream. Who was she to be the judge of what she deserved?

Once she was clean, she combed her hair with a fork from the cabin, lacking any sort of actual comb, and she thought of the comb Laphi had worked so hard to get for her. _He gave so much for me,_ she thought. _And what have I ever given for him? Nothing…nothing, before today…_

When there was nothing more she could do, she braided her hair, got dressed, and walked back to the treehouse to get Rokurou. In the clearing, she found him angrily throwing a stringy bit of bark on the ground, one hand in his hair.

"What are you doing?" she asked tonelessly.

He turned to look at her, and she was surprised to see that he was keeping the hair pulled back from the right side of his face, baring his daemon mark. "I want to tie my hair back," he told her. "All of it. That way we'll know right away if the purification works."

"You say that like being purified wouldn't change anything about you besides your eye," Velvet remarked, just barely managing to not roll her own eyes.

"I just want to be sure," he told her, and somehow he managed to muster a smile that radiated that hell-may-care attitude she knew so well. "I thought some of this ropey bark could do the trick, but it keeps snapping…"

Everything about this triggered Velvet's hatred, but she sighed and looked down at her left hand. "Here," she said, unwinding one of the bandages from around her index finger and holding it out to him. "Use this."

"Wow, really?" he asked. "Thanks!"

As he took the bandage, Velvet stared at her exposed finger. She had never really looked at what was under the bandages unless her therion claw was fully unleashed, but the skin was still corrupted even in human shape, black and streaked with red veins.

"Alright, let's go!"

Velvet looked up at him, her focus jumping from her blackened finger to Rokurou's fully-uncovered face, and she noticed for the first time that her daemon mark and his looked almost identical, as though they were two halves of the same monster. The thought unsettled her, but she released her therion claw into its full form, holding it in front of her so it wouldn't drag on the earth. "Let's go," she agreed.

Together, they walked away from the treehouse Rokurou had built with his own blades and headed for wherever they might find Maotelus.

~o~

When they had left old Eastgand and reached the road that led into Ladylake, they had to stop and argue about which way to go - Rokurou wanted to head for Camlann, but Velvet didn't want to intrude on Elysia again and insisted they try Ladylake instead. It only took a couple of minutes before Rokurou agreed, but the tension that stretched between them was more intense than the domain in Aroundight Forest.

They both had doubts.

On the bridge into Ladylake, they ran into guards. With both of their daemon traits in full view, the alarm was quickly sounded, and no less than a dozen knights with spears assembled to block their path.

"Stay back, hellions!" shouted one of the knights. "We will defend this town with our lives!"

"There's no need for that," Velvet told them simply.

"Hey, send a message through for us," Rokurou added, and he grinned. "Tell Lailah that Velvet and Rokurou are ready to face the flame."

Some words were exchanged, and then one of the knights ran into town, while the others kept their spears fixed on Velvet and Rokurou. Rokurou's hands itched to draw his swords and fight the challengers, and Velvet rolled her eyes.

"If we were here to cause trouble, you'd all be dead by now," she told them.

This did not encourage anyone to lower their spears, but Velvet was tired, and couldn't be bothered with anything but the truth.

Some time passed in a tense silence, both daemons staring down the spears pointed in their faces without flinching. Then, behind the blockade, footsteps came running, and the knights turned to see their messenger followed by three seraphim.

Lailah, Edna, and Zaveid walked calmly down the bridge, their expressions passive. Velvet and Rokurou met their eyes as they stopped with only a line of knights between them.

"We heard you two are ready to face the flames of purification," Lailah said. "Is that true?"

"Yep," Rokurou answered as Velvet gave a sharp nod.

"Very well," Lailah said. "Please, come with us."

"But Lady Lailah-!" one of the knights began.

"Move aside," Edna told him. "All of you. We'll handle them."

"Aren't you going to purify us yourself?" Rokurou asked as the knights uneasily made room for them to pass.

"Maotelus wants to be the one to purify you," Zaveid replied as Lailah made some airy comment about the cobblestones. "He has some things to say to you first that you need to hear."

With this ominous response, Edna and Zaveid took up positions behind Velvet and Rokurou, while Lailah led the way, and the five of them marched slowly through Ladylake.

Unsurprisingly, they drew a lot of attention, previously-carefree townsfolk cutting off their conversations mid-word and staring at the procession. Some of the people they passed followed them as they climbed the steps to the market and turned towards the Sanctuary. Both Velvet and Rokurou were uneasy at all the eyes on them, but they kept walking.

"Is, uh, Sorey here?" Rokurou asked as they passed the vendors.

"Sorey and Mikleo are off on some expedition exploring ancient ruins," Edna replied tonelessly. "There's no telling when they'll be back."

"Aw, man," Rokurou grumbled, "I wanted him to be here to see me repay my debt."

"We're not waiting," Velvet told Rokurou.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "But still…"

At last, Lailah opened the doors to the Sanctuary, entered, and immediately walked to the right to stand among the pillars along the wall. Rokurou made to follow her, but Edna came up beside him and herded him forward instead, towards the altar. Once they were in the middle of the grand space, Zaveid also broke off to join Lailah, and Edna jogged a few steps to get in front of the two daemons. Brandishing her umbrella to indicate that Rokurou and Velvet should stop, she took a few more steps forward and then stomped one booted foot on the floor, hard enough to shake the earth below.

"Maotelus!" she barked. "Get up here!"

Light began to rise from under the foundation of the citadel, and Edna walked away to join Lailah and Zaveid. From deep within the earth, Maotelus arose, his full form as the Dragon of Light filling half the Sanctuary with his divine presence. All the humans in attendance gasped, but the Empyrian focused on Velvet and Rokurou.

"Velvet," he said. "Rokurou. I didn't expect you to come so soon."

"Neither did we," Velvet admitted.

"Are you ready to receive the Silver Flame?" Maotelus asked.

Rokurou nodded. "We are."

"I see…" Maotelus shifted slightly, as though uncomfortable. "Before that happens, there's something you both need to know about what this could mean for you."

Neither daemon spoke.

"You…have both lived a long time," Maotelus finally continued, his tone hesitant. "Many centuries have passed, with your bodies preserved through absolute corruption by malevolence. It is malevolence that has held your flesh together all these years. If you were to be purified by a Shepherd or a Prime Lord, you would both immediately crumble into dust."

Velvet couldn't contain a small gasp, and though Rokurou had more control, his soul _thunk_ed in place of the apprehension he couldn't feel.

"If I use all my power, there's a chance I might be able to replicate the effect and save you, at least to an extent," Maotelus went on. "I _might_ be able to give you normal, human bodies that will age and die in a few decades, like anyone else, as though you were never malevolent, and all your time as hellions never happened. But I don't know for sure it can be done, and the chance is small at best." He lowered his head to look them more directly in the eyes. "Knowing this, are you willing to proceed?"

Velvet shrugged. "I wouldn't mind dying," she said flatly. "Ask Rokurou. He's the one with a dream he wants to pursue."

"Rokurou?"

"I…" Rokurou sighed. "Even if I said no, I won't be able to achieve my dream like this," he said resignedly. "I'm tired of this life, too tired to go on. Something has to change. It's a risk I'm willing to take."

"I see…" Maotelus lifted his head, then tilted it to the side. "And what if my power is only enough to save one of you? Which of you should be the one to live?"

"Again, I have no problem with dying," Velvet answered readily. "Save Rokurou."

"Well now hold on, that's not something you can just decide!" Rokurou exclaimed.

Surprised, she turned to him.

"Velvet, I've been in this world for fifteen hundred years," he told her firmly. "I've had more than enough time. You haven't even had two decades. You're the one who should get a chance at life."

"But _you're_ the one with a dream!" she snapped. "I have nothing to do in this world!"

"You don't know that," Rokurou argued. "You don't know what you might want to do once you're purified." He turned to Maotelus. "Phi, save Velvet, I've had more than enough time in my life."

"No!" she shouted. "Phi, don't you dare! Rokurou, don't pretend to be a gentleman!"

"I didn't wait five hundred years to free you just to watch you crumble into dust!" Rokurou snapped.

The argument began to grow heated, both daemons ignoring their baffled audience of humans and seraphim. A few exchanges further, and it looked like they might come to blows.

"I honestly can't tell whether they're being selfless or selfish," Edna remarked to her companions.

"Perhaps, for such thoroughly-corrupted hellions, the two are one and the same?" Lailah suggested.

Zaveid didn't interject, and after a moment, the two women looked at him to see his gaze fixed on Maotelus, reddish-brown eyes narrowed in what looked like suspicion. "What are you up to?" he muttered under his breath.

"You didn't _choose_ to become a daemon, Velvet!" Rokurou was yelling. "I became a daemon through my own choices! Let me be held responsible for my actions!"

"_Your_ actions?!" she shrieked. "Did you ever destroy an entire village in five minutes? Because I destroyed two!"

"In case you forgot, I caused the recent calamity!" Rokurou argued. "How many villages do you think that destroyed?"

"And _I_ was the _Lord_ of Calamity!" Velvet shouted. "You've done nothing compared to all the chaos I caused!"

"I'm pretty sure I have a much higher kill count than you!" he retorted.

"Only because you've had a lot more time to rack them up!" she scoffed.

"Name one time you killed someone who didn't deserve it!" Rokurou snapped. "I just run around headhunting for fun!"

"You think I didn't-?!"

"_ENOUGH_!" Maotelus thundered, loudly enough to shake dust from the rafters.

Both Velvet and Rokurou fell silent, turning away from each other to look up at the glowing behemoth.

"Since you can't decide who should live, it's _my_ decision," Maotelus declared, "and if I can only save one of you, I'm going to save Velvet. Do you accept?"

"Fine by me," Rokurou said.

"Velvet?"

Velvet stared at her exposed therion claw for a few long moments, then shrugged. "Who am I to argue with the Dragon of Light?" she asked listlessly. "If that's really what you want to do, Phi, then I'll…live with it. Somehow."

"Good." Maotelus reared his head back and opened his jaws, but instead of spewing white fire onto his friends, he gave a silent roar, and an earthpulse rift opened in front of them. "Come."

"Wait, what?" Rokurou asked.

"If there's even going to be a chance of saving you, I have to do it within the earthpulse," Maotelus told them. "Come."

He dove into the gate, wings spreading as he fell into the rift in the world's energy. He didn't get any smaller, and the rift didn't get larger, yet he seemed to grow more distant as he flew into the void, until at last he vanished. Velvet and Rokurou glanced at each other, then stepped through the gate themselves.

_Where it began,_ Velvet thought, _and where it will end._

On the other side, they stood high above Ladylake among the crystalized energy of the earthpulse. Maotelus was waiting for them, and with a swipe of his claws, the rift behind them closed.

_No going back._

And yet, the white dragon still hesitated. "Are you sure about this?" he asked as he took a position in front of them. "Are you really sure?"

"What's with all this second-guessing?" Rokurou asked. "We're here, aren't we?"

"Just get it over with," Velvet grumbled.

"Okay…" The Empyrian sounded, not like the most powerful being in the world, but a nervous child. Still, he opened his jaws, igniting the Silver Flame and unleashing it onto the two ancient daemons in a torrent of white fire.

This time, both Rokurou and Velvet could _feel_ the way the Silver Flame passed over them, nudging them for permission to enter before turning away when it was denied. And it _was_ denied, they were denying it, fear and uncertainty holding them both back.

_Is this really the path I choose to follow? _they both wondered.

Then, in the whirlwind of flames, without thinking about it, Velvet and Rokurou reached for each other, grasping one another's hands at the same time. As they squeezed each other in their grip, the answer came to them both at once:

_Yes._

As one, they opened themselves to the Silver Flame at last…and were immediately pierced by searing agony.

If they screamed, they couldn't hear it over the sound of their own torment. Having embraced malevolence for so long, it had saturated every ounce of them, become as much a part of them as their own souls, and to burn it away was no easy task for the seraphic fire. Each individual fiber of their beings had to have the corrosive darkness burned away, bit by bit, inch by inch, piece by tiny piece.

Slowly, so slowly, the Silver Flame made its way through their flesh down, eventually reaching into their bones. Then, once it had cleansed the marrow, it sank into their hearts, the anguish doubling as their identities were cleansed in fire. The light reached the crucibles of malevolence they both carried - Velvet's daemon stomach, where she gathered all the malevolence she consumed, and the empty voids in Rokurou's soul where malevolence had been allowed to accumulate and fester for centuries. Both erupted in a hellish blaze, like vats of oil with torches thrown into them, and by now they _were_ screaming, both of them, burning and burning and being torn apart, everything they were engulfed in the purest of flames.

It seemed endless. Surely, to have all the lava in Mount Killaraus poured down their throats would have been less torturous than the unending, searing fire burning them inside-out. Beyond their hearts lay their souls, both long-marinated in the darkest of darkness and fearful of the light, screaming in anguish as the fire cast its glow upon the ancient shadows, and with this was the agony redoubled yet again. But though either one of them could have blocked the Silver Flame out, turned their backs on the light and decided that to be daemons was the life they truly wanted, that humanity wasn't worth this, they did not. Velvet, in a way, welcomed the pain, retribution for the pain she had caused others; for Rokurou, it was the first thing he had felt with his heart in centuries, and the experience alone was as exhilarating as it was painful.

And so they burned, and burned, as the Silver Flame finished making its way through their souls and began to work through their cores, the very foundations of their identities. It left no tiny corner of their beings unchecked or uncleansed, slowly and thoroughly consuming every ounce of malevolence they contained. Was there no end to it? Was the malevolence within them truly infinite? Both wondered, as they held on to each other's hands, determined to get through this whether there was an ending or not, together.

Finally, the seraphic fire pinned down their innermost cores and pierced them, pulsing all the way through and exploding back outward, every scrap of malevolence ignited and obliterated…and it was done, the pain ended. Both newly-freed humans doubled over, panting, unable to believe they had survived such a trial. In fact…

Realizing it at the same time, they turned to look at each other, and discovered that both of them still lived. The bandage tying Rokurou's hair back had been blasted away by the force of the Silver Flame, his shaggy black mane covering the right side of his face once more, but Velvet lifted her left hand and brushed it aside to reveal a second, perfect, entirely-human eye. She gasped, then exclaimed again when she looked at the hand she had used, where her one exposed finger was pale and smooth, human and clean.

It wasn't just appearances, either. Looking at Rokurou didn't cause anger or hatred to surge through Velvet's veins, and when she looked within, her heart didn't chant an unending mantra of hatred. In Rokurou's chest, the mechanism tried to start, then caught, activating what was suddenly there, and all at once, emotions of all sorts flooded through him, both painful and exhilarating, as he felt, he _felt_…

"Maotelus?" Velvet eventually rasped, turning to the divine dragon.

"This is Laphi's gift to you," proclaimed the Empyrian. "Use it well."

"Laphi's gift…?"

All at once, Rokurou burst out laughing, and he didn't just make the motions, he _felt_ it, felt mirth, felt joy. "You little rat!" he chuckled. "You played us! You knew you could save us both all along!"

"I'm sorry for deceiving you," Maotelus said, shifting his massive weight uncomfortably. "But I had to be sure, really sure. _You_ had to be sure. I won't be able to do this for you again."

"Why not?" Velvet asked softly.

"When the seal broke, both you and Innominat still contained massive amounts of mana left over from the Mana Wheel," Maotelus told her. "You spent yours fighting with Rokurou - that's why we didn't let Sorey try to interrupt. But Innominat kept his, and when I consumed him, he passed it on to me. The part of him that was your brother wanted me to hold on to it and use it to save you both once you were ready."

"Laphi…" Velvet breathed, her eyes stinging.

"But it took all of that power to heal you," Maotelus went on. "If either of you should ever fall to malevolence again, my power won't be enough to save you a second time. So I had to be sure you wouldn't waste your second chance."

"We won't," Velvet promised. She hadn't expected to be so sure, but with her burning hatred gone, she felt free, alive; the world still wasn't the one she'd been born into, but now she felt as though she could actually build a new life for herself. Despair was gone, pain was distant.

"We won't," Rokurou agreed. Though the differences in his heart weren't too big, now that he could feel, he knew that a life as an empty daemon was not something he wanted.

"Then go," Maotelus told them. "Go, and build your lives again. I believe in you…and I'll always be watching over you."

"Thank you…Phi," Velvet breathed as the Empyrian reopened the rift that would take them back to the Ladylake Sanctuary.

"See you around, kid," Rokurou added, smiling.

Then the two turned back and emerged into the world, clean and pure, free of the darkness they had embraced for so long.

* * *

**Stay tuned, folks, we're not done yet!**


	19. A Brilliant Brand-New Day

Back in the Ladylake Sanctuary, the crowd of curious people had thinned considerably, but plenty were still there, eyes wide as Velvet and Rokurou emerged from the reopened earthpulse rift. Velvet saw their fear, their uncertainty, but didn't find herself responding with contempt; instead, she lifted her left hand, one finger bare, as a sign of peace. Beside her, Rokurou brushed the hair out of his face to reveal his second human eye. Some gasps and mutters met the revelations, but none of the humans - _people_, Velvet reminded herself, _I'm human now too_ \- had any sort of positive reaction. No one cheered, or smiled, or even relaxed.

_I shouldn't expect anything else,_ Velvet thought. _If I were them, I wouldn't trust me, even now._ Yet for some reason, it still stung.

Behind them, Maotelus emerged from the earthpulse and spread his wings as far as the Sanctuary allowed. "Behold," he declared as the rift closed, "even the oldest and darkest of hellions can be purified, if they open their hearts. Only fully-formed dragons are beyond the power of purification."

More mutters, but nothing more.

Velvet sighed and turned to look up at the divine Empyrian. "Thank you, Phi," she said gently, "for all you've done for us. Our lives are ours to make now."

Maotelus looked down at her, his glowing white eyes radiating sadness. "But…"

"Go on, take a break," Rokurou told him. "That can't have been any easier on you than it was on us."

Velvet doubted this, but nodded. "Rest," she told him. "Go do Empyrian things. What comes next is up to us."

The Dragon of Light stared at them both for a moment, then lowered his head and gently tapped the tip of his snout against their heads, first Velvet, then Rokurou. "Take care of yourselves," he told them.

"Don't worry about us," Rokurou reassured him with a smirk. "We'll be fine."

The Empyrian nodded, then dissolved back into the earth and was gone.

All was still for a long moment. Then, Edna stepped forward.

"Alright, everyone clear out," she told the crowd. "Show's over."

No one moved.

Edna stomped, the earth shaking beneath her boot. "Scram!"

That, at last, got a reaction; all the humans in the Sanctuary besides Velvet and Rokurou quickly made themselves scarce, and soon the building was almost empty.

"Thank you, Edna," Velvet said, stepping forward.

"Don't mention it," she shrugged.

"Well, I think some congratulations are in order!" Lailah said brightly, clapping her hands and trotting up to Velvet and Rokurou. "Congratulations to you both! I knew you could find your ways back!"

"I doubted you could do it," Edna said dully. "But way to go, I guess."

From the side, Zaveid simply tipped his hat at them and smiled. There was nothing he needed to say.

"So!" Lailah went on cheerfully. "What are you going to do now that you're human again? Where will your new lives take you?"

Rokurou _hmm_ed, and Velvet understood what he meant - a new life, a life without malevolence, still felt as unthinkable as it was immediate. Being without hatred was already as unsettling as she had expected - she felt light, adrift, untethered, unsure what to do. But what she hadn't expected was how free she felt without the pounding hatred in her heart…how _happy_ she felt, now that she didn't have to hate. Looking down at herself, her tattered clothes and her bandaged arm, she suddenly was struck by an urge.

"You know…I think I want a change of clothes," she said. "This outfit really isn't me."

"Yeah…Yeah, I can get behind a new outfit," Rokurou agreed. "Now that I can actually see a tailor without worrying about my daemon mark, maybe I can get someone to remake my old Rangetsu garb. That would be nice."

It was so absurd, so _Rokurou_, but instead of getting angry, Velvet laughed. _Truly_ laughed, with real mirth, at how he was still him, his same old seemingly-random self.

"I'm serious!" Rokurou exclaimed.

"I know," Velvet chuckled. "That's why I'm laughing."

"Well, I think it sounds like a wonderful idea!" Lailah said. "Nothing like a new outfit to celebrate a new you!"

"A new me…" Velvet repeated softly. It was impossible, and yet it was true…

"Come with me," Lailah told them, turning to the doors. "I'll take you to the finest tailors in Ladylake. I'm sure they can accommodate both of you."

Without even thinking, Velvet found herself following the fire seraph, and Rokurou trailed behind her.

Even with Edna's dismissal of the crowd, stares and mutters followed them through the whole city, despite Lailah's friendly smiles for every person they passed. Velvet found herself drawing closer to Rokurou, the one person she knew she could trust. That was when she realized that she did in fact trust him - without the hatred clouding her mind, Rokurou was her dearest friend, her most trusted ally…her home.

"Here we are," Lailah chirped, pushing open a door with very little ornamentation. A bell chimed, and Lailah stepped inside.

"Lady Lailah!" exclaimed a man behind a counter as Velvet and Rokurou walked in. "To what do we owe the honor?"

Lailah gestured at the newly-purified humans. "These two need some new clothes," she told him. "I'm sure you and your wife can get them whatever they need. Please do your best for them, okay?"

"O-Of course, Lady Lailah," the man stammered, bowing to her. "As you wish."

The fire seraph giggled, then turned her smiles on Velvet and Rokurou. "I'll leave you to it," she told them. "Congratulations again, I always believed in you."

"Thank you, Lailah," Velvet said, trying to bury her discomfort. She didn't really even know this seraph, but such a positive soul was difficult to argue with.

Lailah left, and a woman came out from the back. After a short exchange, it came out that the wife was the designer and the husband was the salesman, so they split up, Velvet browsing the clothing they had in stock while Rokurou started making demands of the tailor for a new set of traditional Rangetsu garments.

Velvet's fashion sense was many centuries out of date, but she managed to find a few clothes that suited her - simple shirts, sturdy pants, leather boots, all in earthy tones, just like so long ago. She tried on several outfits, made her selection, and prepared her purchase, her old Lord of Calamity outfit tucked away in her bag, though she kept her gauntlet blade and didn't remove the bandages from her arm just yet…and after all that, Rokurou was still debating small details with the storekeeper's wife, arguing about the exact color and type of fabric from piece to piece of the theoretical kimono. This went on for what felt like another hour, while Velvet simply stood and waited for the one of them who actually had money to get around to paying. But…she wasn't angry, or even annoyed. Watching him be so picky over the tiny details of a traditional Rangetsu outfit made her smile. It was…cute.

Finally, Rokurou and the seamstress came to an agreement, and she declared that it would take at least a million gald to get the outfit just the way Rokurou liked it. He laughed and said he would happily pay one and a half million gald, then dropped two hundred thousand on the counter as a deposit and to cover Velvet's selections. Even Velvet was surprised as they left.

"Where did you get that money?" she asked him.

"Well, that's most of what I had left," Rokurou shrugged. "But I do know I have more skibus wood I can sell, and now I know what a skibus tree looks like, so the cost of my old clothes won't be too much trouble."

Smiling, Velvet shook her head. "Everything's still simple for you, isn't it?"

Incredibly, Rokurou's smile faltered. "Hey, let's go get something to eat," he said quickly, almost abruptly. "You'll be able to taste food now!"

"Oh! O-Okay," Velvet managed as Rokurou grabbed her wrist and dragged her across town to the inn.

"Order whatever you want," Rokurou told her enthusiastically as he sat her down at a table. "I have a few thousand gald left, so don't be stingy!"

"Rokurou…are you okay?" Velvet asked slowly as he sat down across from her.

"Of course!" he said brightly.

Frowning, Velvet stared at him carefully. He was still wearing that carefree smile he always had, yet it didn't look quite right. It looked…_forced_, as though he really didn't feel the nonchalance he was portraying. Something was bothering him - which was weird, because things _never_ bothered daemon Rokurou. _But now he has emotions,_ she thought, deciding not to press him. _It must be confusing to sort through all kinds of feelings after living without them for so many centuries._

After a bit of deliberation, Velvet decided to go simple and order mabo curry. Rokurou ordered pork and potatoes, then whispered something to the waitress as she left to get their food in the works. Crossing her arms, Velvet looked around at the handful of other people in the tavern uncomfortably; even here, there were stares, points, whispers. Even with the blessing of Maotelus himself, people doubted her, and she didn't blame them. The only strange thing was that…she didn't really doubt herself anymore. It was a stunning realization, but she no longer felt plagued by doubt. The past was behind her, and she didn't have to be defined by it.

By the time their food arrived, Velvet was still mulling over this revelation, without once thinking it was odd that Rokurou hadn't spoken - presumably, he was dealing with his own new outlook on life, without malevolence clouding his vision.

And then there was food. _Food_…She had had taste in her dreams, even in her dream world, but the inability to taste real food was something she'd long taken for granted. Taking a deep breath, she reached for her fork…

"Oh, Velvet, before you try that."

Velvet looked up, just in time to see Rokurou toss an apple at her, which she caught by reflex.

"Try this," he said with a smile. "I paid an extra fifty gald for it."

Remembering the first bite of food she had tried and failed to taste so long ago, Velvet laughed. "You remember," she said fondly.

"Yeah…" Again, his smile faltered instead of broadening. "I do."

Her own smile faltered, but she bit into the apple, and tangy-sweet juice spurted into her mouth, the texture of the fruit carrying actual flavor, flavor much sharper than it had ever been in her dreams. "Oh!" she gasped, her mouth full of apple.

"Well?" Rokurou asked.

She chewed and swallowed before replying. "I can taste," she said softly. "I can _taste_, Rokurou…"

"Great!" he said cheerfully, digging into his own dish, his eyes still on her with an odd sharpness in their depths. It was an unsettling look, but Velvet turned her attention to her food.

The apple was delicious, the curry was delicious, and she ate ravenously, the way her older sister had always chastised her for, though she was at least careful not to let any of it get on her face. She outpaced Rokurou and finished both the curry and the apple before he was done, upon which yet another revelation surfaced.

"I…I feel full," she remarked wonderingly, staring at her empty plate.

"Hmmf?" Rokurou mumbled through a mouthful of food.

"I'm…full," Velvet repeated. "I feel satisfied, like I don't need to eat any more. I…I forgot what this felt like…"

"Mmm." Rokurou gulped down a huge lump of meat and potatoes, then said, "That's great, Velvet."

"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, it is…"

Rokurou finished his food, and then he dragged Velvet back outside, insisting on doing whatever else they could do with the gald he had left. He got a real hair tie for himself, he bought her a comb, he showed her the city's water wheel and the upper-class district…It quickly became apparent that he was trying to keep her from getting a word in edgewise. Velvet just wanted to go back to their treehouse, but Rokurou kept coming up with new things for them to do together.

Finally, in the middle of the afternoon, Velvet pulled her hand free of his grip and put her foot down. "Rokurou, can we go home, please?" she asked tiredly.

"Uh…" He blinked. "Home?"

"The treehouse," Velvet said. "Can we please go? I'm tired of everyone looking at us, and I'm just tired in general."

"Oh. O-Of course," he stammered, though he seemed uneasy about something. What that was, Velvet couldn't begin to guess, but at least they finally left the city and the judgmental glares that surrounded them.

On the way back to the treehouse, Velvet realized that they couldn't deal with daemons so easily now that they were only human, but no monsters assaulted them during the walk; maybe she and Rokurou had already destroyed most of the daemons in the forest. Instead, the only unsettling thing was the way Rokurou kept glancing over his shoulder at her every two seconds, as though expecting her to suddenly not be there anymore. _Does he expect me to leave?_ Velvet wondered. _Surely he knows me better than that…_

Eventually, they reached the treehouse, as shabby but quaint as ever. Rokurou stopped in the middle of the clearing and looked up at it, his expression pensive, and Velvet sighed and stepped around him.

"Do you mind if I…have a moment to myself?" she asked him. "Just a minute or so."

"Huh? Oh, sure!" he replied, sounding surprised. "Yeah, I'll just get my practice swings in while you're inside."

"Practice swings?" Velvet repeated. "You're still going to do that?"

"Of course!" Rokurou exclaimed. "Daemon or human, I'm still a swordsman."

Smiling, Velvet shook her head and climbed up into the treehouse.

It took a moment for her to find the medium-sized box she'd found in the cabin and carried back here, but she found it and brought it into the bedroom for added privacy. Getting down on her knees, Velvet opened it and began packing her old clothes away, one strappy piece at a time. It wasn't just about putting away her old clothes, it was a time to reflect, on who she was, who she would no longer be.

Then, everything was stored away. Kneeling in front of it all, she sighed heavily.

She couldn't avoid it anymore.

Taking one of the ends of the bandages that encased her arm, she slowly began unwrapping the bindings she had lived with like a second skin for so long. As the wrappings fell away, lines of entirely human skin were revealed, and she stared at them as she continued to pull the strips apart.

Finally, all the bandages were pooled on the floor to her side, and her left arm was free and bare. It was entirely human, from shoulder to fingertips. Smooth, pale, as though it had never been corrupted. Or no, wait, not entirely smooth…

Eyes widening, Velvet raised her other hand and used a finger to trace over the thick, ragged white scar that slashed through her palm, front and back. It was where Artorius had cut her hand off as she had desperately clung to the edge of the pit where Innominat had waited, jaws open and waiting for her brother, so that the ritual could be completed. She shouldn't still have a left hand at all. But even if there was only a scar, she was glad for the reminder that her past had happened, that the Silver Flame hadn't erased everything she had ever become and endured.

Smiling a sad smile, she gathered up the bandages and put them in the chest with her old clothes. For another long moment, she just stared at them, thinking, remembering. Then, at last, she closed the lid.

"So ends the Lord of Calamity."

Startled, Velvet looked up, and saw Rokurou standing in the doorframe, his arms folded, smiling at her.

His smile faded. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to scare you. But you did only say you needed a minute, and…"

"It's fine," Velvet sighed, pushing the box away. "Yes, you're right. So ends the Lord of Calamity." She glanced up at him. "I must have taken a lot longer than I thought, though, if you already got all ten thousand practice swings in."

"Well…about that…" he said slowly. "I, uh…I was on swing number one thousand one hundred ninety-two when I realized…ten thousand swings is a bit much."

"Really?" Velvet blinked, surprised to hear such words from Rokurou.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "I mean, if ten thousand swings a day was really going to make me as strong as I want to be, I'd be where I want to be at right now. It's still important for me to stay in shape, I'm not giving up my dream of becoming the best swordsman the world has ever seen, but…I think five thousand should be enough."

Velvet burst out laughing. Only for Rokurou would five thousand practice swings a day be a huge concession, it was so _him_…

"So, uh," he said hesitantly when her giggle-fit ended. "Where…are you going to go now?"

"Go?" Velvet asked, surprised. "You want me to go?"

"Huh? No," Rokurou replied, "but…I assume you want to leave. There's no real reason for us to stay together, and…I mean, I understand you were uncomfortable in Ladylake, but you'd probably be far enough away in Lastonbell or Pendrago for people to not bother you. You could…I don't know, start a restaurant, maybe meet a lady friend…"

"Rokurou," Velvet chuckled, "are you still hung up on that?"

"I…" Rokurou sighed, then stepped into the room and sat down. "Partly," he admitted. "But it's not just that. It's also that…I understand, now, why you hated me so much. Not just because you were the therion of hatred, but…sealing Innominat away was your choice. You chose to give your life and death to end him, it was your decision what to do with your existence, and…I disrespected your decision, and tore you out of the seal for my own selfish purposes." He looked at her, his copper eyes deep and sincere. "I'm sorry," he told her. "You have every right to be mad at me. I understand if you never want to see me again."

Velvet didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Rokurou with emotions really was a different person, much more so than she had expected, but leaving was the absolute last thing she wanted to do. "Of course I want to see you again," Velvet told him. "I want to…to stay here. Unless you want me to leave…?"

"No," Rokurou said solemnly, "I don't want you to leave. I…" Another sigh. "Even when I was a daemon, you were home for me," he told her, and she felt her heart skip a beat. "All this time I spent wandering the world, feeling like something was missing and eventually concluding that that something was you…it didn't take emotions for me to know, my place in this world is by your side, wherever that might be. But now that I can feel again, I care what you want, too. I…I don't want you to feel trapped."

"I'm not trapped," Velvet said softly. "Rokurou…you're home for me too. Listen…" She shifted closer to him, to sit by his side. "I know I went into a lot of detail about my relationship with Niko in my dream world," she said, guilt pricking her heart, "and it's true that she was my childhood sweetheart in real life too, even if I couldn't act on it because I was busy taking care of my brother. But what I didn't tell you about my dream world was that, by the time you…by the time it ended, Niko and I had moved on from each other, and…and I'd started to think fondly of you."

"Me?"

"Yes," Velvet said. "Even in my dream, it was you. You might not be the same person you were in my dream, but…but you are you, Rokurou. You…are my best friend, the one person I know I can trust. We've done everything in this world together since the day we escaped from Titania, and I don't want that to ever change."

"So…so you'll stay?" he asked, as though he didn't dare to believe it. "You'll stay here, with me?"

"Unless I can convince you to move out of this treehouse," Velvet replied.

"Nah, that's not happening," Rokurou said, smiling that old cocky grin. "This house was built Rangetsu style, I'm not abandoning it!"

The tension eased as Velvet laughed. He was different, yes, but not _that_ different. "Then I'll live here too, if you'll let me," she told him.

"Of course!" Rokurou assured her. "I would be happy if you stayed with me, even…even if it's just as friends."

_Definitely still Rokurou, oblivious as ever,_ Velvet thought, her eyes rolling even as she smiled. Words clearly wouldn't get through to him, so she leaned up, put a hand around the back of his head, and kissed him.

He made a surprised noise at the back of his throat, then kissed her back, and for one moment, everything was bliss. When the moment passed, though, they both fully realized what a horrible, twisted mockery of intimacy their dalliances as daemons had been, and felt deeply ashamed for how they had abused each other. As Rokurou pulled Velvet closer and the kiss deepened, both of them felt an overwhelming desire to make up for all the taking they'd done, and when he picked her up in his arms to carry her to the bed, there was only one thing on both their minds: _give_. Give, and take as little as possible in return. They'd both done so much taking, inflicted so much abuse, and it was terrible; they wanted only to make up for it. Ironically, as they gently removed each others' clothes, tender kisses and gentle caresses replacing savage bites and tearing claws, it became as competitive as it had always been, each of them determined to give and not to take.

But like all their other contests since Innominat's end, this too ended in a draw.

Catching their breaths in each others' arms, Velvet lying on Rokurou's chest, she couldn't help but laugh to herself. Still a tie. Would that ever end?

Rokurou's hand came up, and he put a finger under her chin to lift her face to look at him. He smiled at her and said, "Always my equal."

It was something daemon Rokurou would never have said, and Velvet felt her eyes sting. "D-Don't worry," she stammered, "I'm sure you'll beat me at something someday."

He chuckled, then planted a loving kiss on her forehead. Velvet's insides melted, and she sighed, settling against him. "I love you," she murmured.

Under her cheek, his chest hitched as he gasped; then, his arms folded around her. "I love you too," he told her.

And that was all; there was nothing more to say. As the sun set, they fell asleep together, neither knowing what would come next but neither afraid of the future. Whatever happened next, they would succeed, because they would face it together.

~o~

Asleep in Rokurou's arms, her heart clean of malevolence, Velvet had the experience of a pleasant dream for the first time in many, many ages.

_She was looking down into the treehouse from on high, as though from within the earthpulse, and saw herself, lying on the bed. Her face was flushed and sweaty, but she was smiling, and Rokurou sat beside her, holding her hand. A figure handed her a small bundle, and she took it, her eyes filled with love. It was a baby. Though Velvet couldn't make out any details of the child from her vantage point, she knew that it wasn't just the beginning of a new life, but the beginning of a new Age, the beginning of a new tale._

_From deep within the earth, a presence emerged, unknowably ancient but purely benevolent. It rose up to where Velvet was looking down on herself and wrapped her in comforting warmth, then spoke in an ancient language, a language more ancient than the ancient tongue, a language so ancient that even though Velvet had never heard it before, she understood exactly what it meant._

_"__The way is opened," the entity whispered. "May Light and Dark find peace at last."_

* * *

**Still not quite done…**


	20. Epilogue: Which Way is Tomorrow?

It had been a few months since the calamity had begun, and incredibly, things had settled down. Edna had always known humans were simple creatures, but even she was surprised at how easily they accepted this new world in which hellions and seraphim alike were visible to all.

Even though things were under control now, she still stopped in to visit Lailah every day, just to make sure there was nothing else she needed to do, though her Sub Lord pact had been cut again a few weeks prior. She would make excuses, but the truth was it was nice to have a reason to get away from her home on Rayfalke Spiritcrest and her brother's grave…especially when she got to walk through the town.

Her presence still caught the attention of any human she passed, even months later, and she enjoyed the stares, the whispers, the unasked questions: How long had she been there without them knowing? How old was she? What were her powers? Since when could seraphim look like children? And whatever else went through human minds. Imagining their thoughts made Edna smile to herself. _Keep wondering, losers,_ she thought. _You'll never know…_

"Edna?"

Startled by the sound of her name from the normally-unintrusive crowd, Edna turned, and saw a woman with black hair and golden eyes looking at her. It took a moment to recognize Velvet in normal clothes and without the bandages on her arm, but once she did, she also recognized the man beside her as Rokurou, though his hair was tied back, and he was wearing an exotic, colorful outfit that looked like it took at least an hour to put on and take off.

"Oh," she said tonelessly, "it's you two. What are you doing here?"

"Just buying food," Velvet answered. "You?"

"I drop in to meet up with Lailah sometimes," Edna shrugged. "I'm still the acting earth seraph, even though my Sub Lord pact has been cut and I'm not really needed anymore."

"Oh. Huh." Velvet responded. "Well, it's…good to see you."

"You too," Edna replied, not entirely sure she meant it, and she turned and kept walking towards the town gates.

"Edna, wait."

The abrupt call made Edna halt in her tracks and turn back once more. "What?"

"I…" Velvet hesitated, which wasn't like her, and Edna felt her guard rising. "I'm sorry if this is going too far," Velvet finally managed, "but…I was thinking…Now that Rokurou and I aren't daemons anymore, if you don't have a place to stay…you could come live with us."

"Wait, what?" Rokurou asked, turning on his friend in shock.

"Why would I do that?" Edna asked coldly.

Velvet sighed. "If there's one thing I've learned," she said, "it's that, whether you're human, daemon, or seraph, to live without a home or a family…to feel that there's no place in the world where you belong, and no one you belong with…is unbearable."

_Like Heldalf,_ Edna thought, remembering the Rolance general's curse that had driven him to become the Lord of Calamity.

"Rokurou and I have managed to find a home in each other," Velvet went on. "I would…offer a home to anyone else like us, who belongs to a time long past."

"Three ancient relics of a long-gone age," Rokurou mused. "Heh, what a family we'd make. Sure, Edna, you could live with us if you wanted."

Edna waited for the inevitable, for Velvet to mention Eizen, how he'd want them to look after his little sister. But it didn't come.

"And?" Edna eventually prompted.

"Nothing else," Velvet told her with a smile, though it was clear she was biting her tongue.

_Gotta admit, I admire her restraint,_ Edna thought. "I have no interest in joining a pair of humans," she stated.

"Right," Velvet nodded, turning away. "I just thought I would offer."

And that was all. Edna watched them walk away, shocked that there was no pleading, no cajoling. No, Velvet was letting her make her own choice, and that was that. Just like…

_Keep it together, Edna,_ she told herself. _Don't open your mouth, don't say-_

"But."

Velvet and Rokurou stopped and turned back at the sound of the word that leapt from Edna's throat against her will.

Sighing inwardly, Edna took a step towards them. "After you're done with whatever you came to the city for, why don't you show me where you're staying? Maybe I'll come by sometimes if I get bored."

A gentle smile lit up Velvet's face. "We'd be happy to," she told Edna.

"I'll wait here," Edna said, walking to a nearby wall and leaning against it. "Don't take too long, or I'll leave."

"We won't," Rokurou promised, and they walked away.

_They were Eizen's family, too,_ Edna thought as she watched them go. _Even more so than I was, in some ways. My brother might be gone, but…some traces of him still live on._

_Maybe I'm not all alone, after all._

* * *

**And that's all for this fic! To find out what happens next, you'll have to head on over to the sequel of same category, which is titled, "Tales of Corazoria". It may actually be the most important story I've ever written, so please, come by and give it a shot! I know this story got dark at times, but Tales of Corazoria is a bit less grim; it follows on directly from this epilogue, and in it, I write my own answer for what the true nature of malevolence actually is, as well as give closure to some other beloved characters. Hope to see you there! :D**


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